Behind the Scenes
Do you remember back on the 1st September the blog post ‘Employing Apprentices as an End Point Assessment Organisation’? Time has simply flown past and our first Apprentice, Alex (Digital Marketing Level 3) has just completed 3 months with us. I really cannot believe how quickly that has gone. At the time I had been told by our Marketing […]
Why should I Choose SSES?
We hope you enjoyed our mini-series on Early Years and would like to remind you of the benefits of working with a niche End Point Assessment Organisation. A few weeks ago, we posted ‘How Much Sector Specialism Does your EPAO have?’, and talked about the experience one of the Directors, Suzanne Sapsed, has in relation to Early Years, Children […]
Overview of the Early Years Standards
Between April 2019 and August 2021, three Early Years standards, L2, L3 and L5, were approved by the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE). At the moment there are no plans for a Level 6/Degree, it having been withdrawn in August 2019. These standards replaced the previous framework apprenticeships and introduced an independent assessment in the form of an End Point Assessment, commonly […]
National Adoption Week
From 18th to 24th October 2021, National Adoption Week is dedicated to all those impacted by adoption. Jeff and Suzanne, Directors of SS Educational Services, adopted their youngest child and so this week has a special importance to our organisation. Their daughter has complex special needs, so not in the ‘easy to adopt’ group but she has brought so much joy, laughter and frustration to her family and extended circle. […]
Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner
Following on from the Level 2 Early Years Practitioner, the Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner is the most recent Early Years standard to be approved, since August 2021. The duration to End Point Assessment is 24 months, so any Apprentices should not be going through EPA until at least the middle of 2023. There is always some flexibility with […]
Level 2 Early Years Practitioner
Last Monday we discussed the Level 3 Early Years Educator, as part of our EPA mini-series, and as announced, today we shall take a brief look at the Level 2 Early Years Practitioner. The IfATE (Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Evaluation) states that the overview of the role is to ‘work and interact directly with children on a day-to-day basis supporting the planning of and […]
Level 3 Early Years Educator
In our last blog post ‘How much Sector-Specialism does your EPAO have?’ we mentioned that we planned to post a mini-series on the standards we are/plan to End-Point Assess. We thought we would start with the Early Years Educator Level 3. Although Level 2 – covered next week – is an accepted qualification to work in Early Years, Level […]
How much sector-specialism does your EPAO have?
When apprenticeships changed from frameworks to standards I could see the benefits, from the Trailblazers writing the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed, to having an independent End-Point Assessment Organisation (EPAO) confirm that the apprentice is competent. I decided that an EPAO was something I wanted to be involved with. My work history included early […]
Disability Awareness Day
On Sunday, 12th September, it was the 30th anniversary of Disability Awareness Day. On their website they state that the day concentrates on 3 main themes: To highlight what statutory, private or voluntary services are available to enable disabled people to stay independent; To promote equipment and aids that could maintain or improve independence, not just what is offered by statutory service providers, we […]
Importance of reading for children
This week is all about books. On Monday 6th, we had National Read a Book Day. With the two early years standards, the Early Years Practitioner L2 and the Early Years Educator L3, apprentices are used to working with the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) framework. Within the prime areas there is ‘Communication and Language’ which leads onto ‘Literacy’. With […]