Roles and Responsibilities

The following policies work to support the roles of the responsibility of the center, Delivering SignConnects courses policy, SignConnects checklist, SignConnects Licenses Form and SignConnects Contract.

This document shows the roles and responsibilities of centres delivering SignConnects qualifications. Contents of this document and the Terms and Conditions of Centre Approval document meet the requirements of the General Conditions of Recognition, as issued by the regulator of qualifications (Ofqual). Please read these carefully before applying for centre approval. These conditions require all awarding organisations to have systems in place which comply with Ofqual requirements. Some of these will directly impact on centres. The centre must take all reasonable steps to make sure that SignConnects is able to comply with the General Conditions of Recognition. Centres can do this by following the guidelines in this document and meet the requirements detailed in our Terms and Conditions of Centre Approval.

Becoming an approved SignConnects Centre

Becoming an approved centre is the first step in delivering our qualifications. The process is completed online and to start the approval process, you will need to complete the signup form on SignConnects website. Once you have completed the sign-up form you will be emailed login details where you can complete the Centre approval process.

Please read this Roles and Responsibilities of Centres document in conjunction with: 

• Terms and Conditions of Centre Approval 
• Qualification Specifications (appropriate to the qualifications you plan to offer) 
• General Policies 
• Assessment Regulations (appropriate to the qualifications you plan to offer)

Required Centre Policies

Equal Opportunities Policy

This must include how you treat all learners equally and fairly (see Equality Act 2010) and allow access to all learners regardless of protected characteristics. Make sure that this is dated. 

Reasonable Adjustment Process

You must have a process in place that allows you to recognise your duties towards disabled learners under the terms of the Equality Act 2010. This process should allow students the opportunity to highlight and discuss their 

Appeals Policy

This must detail the process that is followed by both the learner and the centre to appeal a result issued, that is disagreed with. This must include both external appeal (marked by SignConnects) and appeal against internal assessment decisions (marked by assessor). You must include the time scales that learners have to make an appeal and timescales for responding to learners. It should reflect the timescales included in SignConnects Investigation Upon Results and Appeals procedure. Make sure this is dated.

Complaints Policy

This must detail the process that is followed by both the learner and the centre when receiving a complaint from a learner (and any other person accessing your services). It must include the timescales for responding to the learner, the role of the person who will deal with complaints and the process followed if they are disagree, with the outcome, once you have responded to them. Make sure this is dated.

Malpractice & Whistleblowing Policy

This must include what your centre understands malpractice to be, for both staff and students. What you have in place to prevent it, within your centre, for both staff and students. The process you will follow to investigate it and report it to SignConnects. Make sure this is dated.

Health & Safety Policy

This must describe how you will manage health and safety within your business and your commitment to protecting learners on your premises. It should clearly say who does what, when and how. If you have less than five employees, you don’t have to provide a health and safety policy, but we do need a statement to confirm this. Make sure this is dated.

Safeguarding Policy

This must detail the purpose of the policy and the process you follow to protect children, young people and vulnerable adults at risk of harm, neglect or abuse. Also include how others would report their concerns. i.e. whistleblowers. Make sure this policy is dated. 

GDPR/Data Protection Policy

This must include who collects the data, the type of data you will collect, the purpose of this, how long you store the data and any third parties that you may share data with. You would usually include data subject rights and the legal basis you are allowed to collect their data. Make sure this is dated. 

Withdrawal of Qualification Policy/Statement

You must outline the steps you will take, to protect the learners, in the event that your centre withdraws from the delivery of a SignConnects qualification. As a centre you must ensure that an enrolled learner can complete their qualification. If your centre closes or can no longer deliver the SignConnects qualification(s), you need to have provisions in place to support learners to complete.

How to Conduct SignConnects Assessment Procedures

You must include the process that your centre follows to ensure assessment regulations are understood, followed and adhered to. This must be completed for each assessment relating to the qualifications that you are planning to offer. 

Teaching and Assessing Staff Certificates

You must provide all language, teaching and assessing qualification certificates (where appropriate) for all teachers. Alternatively, if BSL is the teachers first language and they do not hold any certificates, we will accept a statement from the centre. This statement must confirm that their first language is BSL and they are competent in the language at the appropriate level they are teaching.

If you need any support with any of these policies, please contact a member of the Customer Support Team and they will assist you. 

Financial Information

We also need to know that if a centre enrols a learner for a qualification, they can complete that qualification so we need to check the financial health of your centre. SignConnects will either gather publicly available financial accounts of centres or carry out individual credit checks if these are not available. Once all documents are received and verified, we will organise a visit to your centre. The visit will be completed by a member of ClarityMatterz Audit Team and usually takes no more than two hours. We will discuss the following: 

• Quality Assurance arrangements
• Your centre’s understanding of the assessments and internal verification arrangements
• Delivery of assessments and the role of staff involved in the assessments i.e. teacher, coordinator, invigilator or exams team

Please use this opportunity to ask us any questions you have. We are here to support and help you. Once this visit has taken place, and we have obtained assurances in your ability to run our qualifications, you will be given approval for 12 months. This is when you can begin registering learners and gain access to teacher support material and resources.

Summary of Roles and Responsibilities for Centre Accountability

Approved centres must have a named point of contact. This means that when a learner has a query regarding any aspect of a qualification, or when an awarding organisation needs to make contact with a centre, they can correspond with the appropriate responsible contact. Centres must provide information for the following responsible contacts: 

Centre Administrator

This person will receive all SignConnects correspondence (via email)  and is responsible for distributing relevant updates to the other responsible person(s) and teacher(s) at the centre. They will receive assessment materials and will be responsible for ensuring they are kept secure before and after assessments. They will be responsible for accessing portal to enter and obtain data. 

Quality Assurance Manager

This is the person responsible for managing quality assurance processes, including demonstrating evidence of RQF regulatory arrangements and ensuring that appropriately trained persons are appointed to co-ordinate/invigilate/perform assessment duties in accordance with SignConnects regulations.

Accounts Contact

Person responsible for queries relating to finance and payments.

Curriculum Manager

Person with overall responsibility for the organisation and delivery of the centre’s curriculum.

Marketing Manager

Person responsible for the marketing activity.

Teachers

We ask for teachers’ qualifications and their level of BSL.

Teacher/Assessors for Internally Assessed Units

We ask for teacher/assessor qualifications and their level of BSL. We understand that one person may cover a number of roles.

Resources and Systems

Centres must have adequate systems and resources in place to support the delivery of the qualifications. This will include staff, equipment, materials and software. They must make sure that their staff are competent and have access to appropriate training, guidance and support. The resources and systems must support equal access for all learners. Centres are responsible for updating portal with staff changes. Centres must ensure they retain a workforce of appropriate size and competence to undertake the delivery of the qualifications, ensuring that they have the capability and capacity to deliver the qualification to the expected number of learners. We recommend that a class size should be no more than 15 learners. e.g. if you have 30 learners you will need to run 2 classes or have 2 teachers. If you intend to increase your number of learners, you will need to inform us, add the new teacher or CSW to portal and upload their qualification certificates for us to verify.

Support for Qualifications

Centres may be asked to provide written support for SignConnects qualifications. This is so we can present this as evidence to Ofqual. 

Registration of learners

Centres must register learners on portal at the beginning of their course. 

Essential requirements

SignConnects publishes in each of its qualification specifications a set of essential requirements needed to demonstrate the required skills in each assessment. A learner must be able to demonstrate the skills required in an assessment. Centres must carry out an initial assessment of candidates before starting the course so that any difficulties the candidate may have in accessing assessments can be identified.

Reasonable Adjustments

Centres are required to inform SignConnects of all requests for reasonable adjustments via the Reasonable Adjustment section within all booking forms. This should be submitted via IRIS when registering candidates. Evidence will be required. Reasonable Adjustments to Assessment Arrangements Policy is available on our website. 

Special Consideration

This may be given to a learners mark or result if they were ill during their assessment, injured or indisposed at the time of their assessment, or where performance was affected by unforeseen circumstances. e.g. serious disturbance during the assessment. You need to request this immediately after the assessment has taken place. SignConnects Special Consideration Policy is available our website.

Delivering Assessments

Centres must ensure they fully understand the assessment specification and assessment regulations provided by SignConnects and that appropriately trained persons are appointed to co-ordinate/invigilate/perform assessment duties in accordance with SignConnects regulations. These may include information on the limits to assistance provided to candidates; the nature, type and recording of evidence, how the assessment must take place and the internal moderation/verification requirements. Qualification specification and assessment regulations can be found on the SignConnects website. 

Conflict of Interest

Any conflict or potential conflict of interest must be declared to SignConnects as soon as possible.

Authenticating

Centres must take all necessary steps to make sure that work submitted is the learners own.

Monitoring

Centres must agree to provide Ofqual and SignConnects access to premises, people and records, and to co-operate with monitoring activities. For a number of assessments, and particularly those that are internally assessed, SignConnects will externally moderate to ensure they have been assessed to the appropriate standard. Please refer to required moderation processes, qualifications specifications and regulations for details on moderation process for each assessment. 

Certificates

Centres must assist SignConnects in guarding against fraudulent or mistaken claims.

Appeals

It is important that centres understand the appeals procedure so that they can provide appropriate information and support to learners who wish to appeal their result. As part of the centre approval process, SignConnects asks that centres have an appeal policy for handling disputes, such as appeals from learners against the centre’s own internal assessment decisions, or if the centre decides not to support a learners request for an investigation upon results. SignConnects appeals policy is available from our website. 

Malpractice

SignConnects expects centre staff to fully co-operate with any investigations of suspected or actual malpractice. In order to maintain the integrity of accredited qualifications, the centre must report any suspected malpractice involving candidates, centre staff or any other parties. Centres should respond speedily and openly to all requests for an investigation into an incident, and a nominated person of the centre should supervise all investigations resulting from an allegation of malpractice.

Withdrawal of a Qualification

If a centre withdraws from a qualification, it must inform SignConnects as soon as possible so candidates are not affected. 

Security and Confidentiality

Centres must guarantee the security and confidentiality of assessment materials and records. These include examination papers, examination scripts, records of marking, and portfolios of evidence, before, during and after the assessment has taken place. Any breach in security must be reported to SignConnects immediately.

The awarding organisation responsibilities that SignConnects will agree to are:

• set out all the requirements that the centre must meet in order to continue to have the capacity and capability to deliver the qualifications. These requirements can be found under centres, “becoming an approved centre” on the SignConnects website.
• have a sanctions policy to use in the event that the centre fails to meet these requirements.
• take all reasonable steps to protect the interests of learners where the centre withdraws from the delivery of a qualification.
• has a policy and process for any withdrawal of the centre (whether voluntary or not) from its role in delivering a qualification/unit, or from delivery/centre approval in general.
• when asked, provide the centre with guidance on how to best prevent, investigate and deal with malpractice or maladministration.
• provide the following information:
  • the policy for issuing invoices, payment of invoices and the retention and content of invoices
  • the sanctions policy
  • a written complaints procedure
  • a specification for each of the qualifications
  • details for making reasonable adjustments
  • details for giving special consideration
  • details of the expected dates or timescales for the issue of results