What is an Approved Assessment Centre (AAC)?

The AAC is the organisation that is approved by Sports Leaders UK to deliver its qualifications, which may include schools, colleges, local authorities, prisons, youth and community groups.

To become an AAC, an organisation must demonstrate that they have appropriately trained staff to manage the delivery, assessment and verification of all courses. A centre must also have an organised administration system to maintain Sports Leaders UK standards for quality assurance purposes.

The regulatory authorities of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) will audit Sports Leaders UK to ensure that agreed quality assurance standards are being implemented and maintained. In turn, Sports Leaders UK must ensure that all AAC's have the resources and training to understand their responsibilities to Sports Leaders UK and to the candidates undertaking qualifications at their centre.

Staffing your AAC

There are several roles that must be identified within an AAC. Various people within the centre may fulfil these roles and sometimes individuals will be able to fulfil more than one role. For example, the Centre Course Manager may also be a Tutor/Assessor or Internal Verifier for the centre. Please refer to the relevant staff sections for further information on the requirements for each role. The roles that an AAC will need to staff are:

Centre Course Manager (CCM)
The CCM has overall responsibility for the planning, administration, and management of courses. This will include the deployment of staff, submitting course applications, implementing quality assurance systems and the day-to-day running of the AAC. The CCM will receive all Sports Leaders UK correspondence and documentation including candidate Record of Achievements, invoices and Technical Updates. 

Tutor/Assessor (T/A)
The Tutor/Assessor designs, plans and delivers the tasks and activities to meet the qualification criteria, and is responsible for managing the assessment of all candidates continuously throughout the course. 

Internal Verifier (IV)
The Internal Verifier's role is to support and verify that the assessment methods and decisions made by the Tutor/Assessor are fair, valid and reliable for all candidates. They must also assist to investigate any appeals from candidates against an assessment decision.

Independent Assessor (IA)*
The Independent Assessor role fulfils Sports Leaders UK's external assessment requirements and was introduced in 2006. This will normally be the person who supervises the candidate for their demonstration of leadership. They must not be involved in the assessment or teaching of any candidates, and must not have a vested interest in the outcome of the assessment of any candidates.  Every candidate must be observed by an Independent Assessor.

*A number of processes differ for the Level 3 Award in Day Walk Leadership and the Level 3 Certificate in Basic Expedition Leadership (post-September 2010 qualifications) that need to be explained:

• The Independent Assessor needs to be accredited by Sports Leaders UK and hold a Mountain Leader or Walking Group Leader qualification. As the arrangement for teaching and assessment is more prescribed, the Independent Assessor will attend the assessment period, not the demonstration of leadership. The demonstration of leadership hours must be supervised by a mentor, who will assist the candidate with their individual action plan. This person must be suitably qualified, for example, have completed the Level 3 Award in Basic Expedition Leadership.