What are NVQs?

NVQs or National Vocational Qualifications are practical qualifications that are achieved largely by what you do in your job. The rules, or “standards”, of the qualifications are designed by the industry that the qualification relates to.

There are five NVQ levels which you can work towards depending on your job:

• Level 1 Basic Industry Skills
• Level 2 Enhanced Industry Skills
• Level 3 Junior Management
• Level 4 Middle Management
• Level 5 Senior Management

NVQs are made up of Units and Knowledge.

What are the Units?

NVQs are split into units, each of which represents an area of work. The qualification will have a mixture of Mandatory and Optional units. Your Learning Assessor will match the Optional units to your job role to make sure that your qualification is just right for you.

What is the Knowledge?

It is important that you have the knowledge to support your work activities i.e. you need to understand why you are doing something and what would happen if you didn’t. In other words you are proving that you can do the job (units) and showing your understanding of why you are doing the job in the way you do it (knowledge).

How do I complete the Units and demonstrate the knowledge I have?

With the support of your Manager and your Learning Assessor you can collect evidence from your everyday tasks and responsibilities at work and build a portfolio of evidence. Evidence can be collected in a variety of ways:

• Professional discussions with you
• Photographs. Question and Answer sessions
• Examples of your everyday work and responsibilities
• Customer and management testimonial
• Observations & Case Studies.

It is important to know that to achieve your Award your evidence must be:

• Valid
• Produced by you
• Sufficient to meet awarding body standards