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Review of Farriery National Occupational Standards (NOS) |
Training and Developing Farriers of Tomorrow, Today |
BRIEFING NOTE FOR FARRIERS
Future Developments of the Farriery Apprenticeship
1. Purpose:
Farriers and particularly ATFs, will be broadly aware that a Review of the Farriery National Occupational Standards (NOS) is currently taking place. This project has now reached the critical stage when the Revised NOS are ready for consultation with the Craft. The purpose of this Briefing Note is to seek your views on the Revised Farriery NOS as well as alerting you to impending changes to the Farriery Apprenticeships that are being required by Government.
We shall all have to be very skilful in our planning, co-ordination and consultation to ensure that all of these changes can be implemented appropriately to the benefit of future generations of Farriers.
Given the statutory obligations upon the FRC Council in regard to the oversight of training, FRC Council Members and Registered Farriers will clearly wish to ensure that;
• The Revised Farriery NOS reflect the current and future needs of the Craft.
• The content of the ATF and College Training Syllabus is that which is required to produce modern professional Farriers.
• The Training Delivery by ATFs and the Farriery Colleges meets accepted standards and targets set by the FRC Visitation Panel and BHEST, the Awarding Body of the Farriery NVQ.
• The standard of assessment and the examination of Farrier Apprentices throughout the four year and two month programme maintain the highest standard of competent practice for those graduates seeking registration by the FRC.
2. Review of Farriery National Occupational Standards:
National Occupational Standards (NOS) form the bedrock of the Farriery NVQ Programme. Lantra, which is the Sector Skills Council for Farriery, is the custodian of the NOS. Government requires that NOS are reviewed every three years and since the Farriery NOS were first published, the review in 2009 is the fourth revision since they were originally written.
Under the auspices of Lantra, a Working Group representing all interests of the Apprenticeship Programme and the Craft generally have reviewed the current Farriery NOS and has recommended changes which are reflected in the Revised NOS can be accessed on the Lantra website -http://www.lantra.co.uk/stakeholders/nos/farriery-revised-nos/
The key changes are summarised as follows:
• The overall structure of the NOS has been changed to reflect the stages of work undertaken by the Farrier.
• The Health & Safety unit has been revised and personalised to farriery to include;
- more emphasis on equine welfare, with a new element being included concentrating on the safe and humane movement of equines.
- more emphasis on personal safety, including knowledge of lone working and occupational health of self.
- increased knowledge of bio-security and environmental issues and the Farrier’s responsibility for this.
• The over knowledge of equine conditions has been updated.
• It has been proposed that the current Welding unit is dropped from the syllabus.
If you have any comments to make about the proposed Revised NOS, please contact Nicky Butcher, FTA Training Programme Manager by telephone on 01733 319770 or email nickybutcher@farrierytraining.co.uk.
Nicky can provide you with a hard copy of the Revised NOS, just call Nicky and she will send you a copy.
Please respond to Nicky by 21 August 2009 with your views – they are important to us and the future of the Craft.
3. Changing the content of the Training Programme:
Once the Revised NOS have been agreed and endorsed by the FTA Management Board, FRC Council and formally accepted by Lantra, we shall then have to work with the Farriery Colleges (currently Myerscough, Warwick and Hereford) to review the content of the training syllabus to ensure that the revised NOS are embedded in the learning programme.
It is hoped that the Revised NOS will be signed off by early September 2009, and then work with the Colleges can commence. It is envisaged that a small Working Group will be established to take forward the work on the Training Syllabus including members of the FRC Visitation Panel who clearly have much experience in this area. The Working Group will need to be created soon to start work on the new syllabus.
If you would be interested in joining the Working Group, please let Nicky Butcher have your name and contact details.
I clearly expect that FRC Council will wish to agree and endorse the new syllabus.
To align with other changes taking place to the Apprenticeship Programme it would be prudent to plan the new syllabus for delivery in September 2010.
4. The Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF):
The Government has ruled that all qualifications must be placed on the new Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF) such that credit ratings can be awarded for a number of qualification criteria. It is absolutely essential that the Farriery NVQ is transferred onto the QCF otherwise it will simply no longer be recognised as a qualification. Similarly, the WCF Diploma, which is the Technical Certificate following completion of the NVQ, is also transferred onto the QCF.
Work on transferring the NVQ will commence this autumn such that we can achieve the submission deadline of October 2009.
The confusing thing at the moment is that the Farriery NVQ once on the QCF will be called “A Diploma” and not an NVQ which will inevitably not sit easily with the current WCF Diploma. There will be further confusion, in that the Government, as you may know, has introduced a new “Diploma” in schools targeted at 18 year olds. Ultimately there will be three “Diplomas!”
Some how, some way, we will need to bring clarity to this situation.
5. Apprenticeship Blueprint:
At the end of August this year, the Government is due to confirm what is being called “The Apprenticeship Blueprint” which will commence nationally in September 2010.
The most significant impact on the Farriery NVQ we see at the moment, is a change to the entry level qualifications which will be 5 GCSE’s at grades A-C, the introduction of 6 personal learning and thinking skills, and the transfer from Key Skills to Functional Skills in Mathematics, English and possibly IT. There may be other changes we are not yet alerted to pending the publication of Government guidelines.
6. A New Farriery Apprenticeship from September 2010:
Bearing in mind all of the changes explained so far, it is highly likely that from September 2010, the FTA will be delivering a different Apprenticeship Programme from what we do today and inevitably we shall have to run two different Programmes alongside each other, the old and the new, for a period of around three and a half years, until the Apprentices on the old Programme have fully completed and achieved.
Change can sometimes appear threatening, particularly when Government simply insists that different arrangements have to made, but I very much hope that we can all see this change programme as a genuine opportunity to build upon an already very successful Apprenticeship Programme and make it better for the Farriers of tomorrow.
Peter Ablett
Chief Executive, Farriery Training Agency
July 2009
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