The Academic Professional Apprenticeship is a route for England HEIs to access Apprenticeship Levy funds to support costs of early career academic development.
Academic Professionals undertake the core role and follow one of two specialist routes, teaching and supporting learning or undertaking research. The apprenticeship requires an independent End Point Assessment (EPA) to be carried out. EPA has three components: a written submission, an observation of teaching practice (Specialist role in Teaching) or research skills (Specialist role in Research), and a professional conversation.
Advance HE is the registered End Point Assessment Organisation for the Level 7 Academic Professional Apprenticeship, working in partnership with Vitae. Our joint approach to EPA:
- Accessible: At the point that an apprentice is ready to take their EPA
- High quality: building on existing core capabilities to ensure a high quality of service
- Clearly linked to existing professional recognition
- Nationally standardised, so the sector can observe integrity in the system
Register your interest
Please use the form below if you are a provider delivering or thinking about delivering the L7 APA, and would like to know more about End-point Assessment service.
End Point Assessment for the Academic Professional Apprenticeship
Information Pack
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How we will conduct EPA
Connected
Apprentices will be provided access to an online community for Academic Professionals (as part of the Advance HE Connect platform) as a place for Academic Professionals to share early career experiences, make use of additional resources relating to Fellowship and provide peer support for EPA. Training Providers will also be provided access to their own community as part of Advance HE Connect Platform.
Personal
Each apprentice will be assessed by one assessor.
Flexible and virtual
EPA will be delivered virtually:
- Academic Professional Practice: uploading video(s) of practice
- Professional Conversation: a web conversation between the apprentice and assessor, at a mutually agreed time
- Written submission: uploading a portfolio of evidence-based reflection
Professional
A dedicated Advance HE / Vitae EPA team will manage and administer the service, supported by industry-leading EPA software.
Sector experts in early career academic development and assessment form our group of Independent Assessors (IAs).
Developmental
We will provide full training and guidance documentation on the process for submitting evidence, undertaking assessment, and receiving certificates and feedback.
All assessment outcomes will include developmental feedback to support Academic Professional’s onwards professional and career development.
All successful outcomes will be celebrated and recognised with the Advance HE / Vitae ‘Academic Professional Award’.
Responsive
We will respond to requests for reasonable adjustments to the service to meet specific needs of apprentices.
The service is guided by a Reference Group of Higher Education teaching and learning, researcher development and apprenticeship experts, and we have ongoing mechanisms for engaging with this group to review and develop service delivery.
The service is guided by annual feedback from all of our stakeholders – apprentices, training providers and independent assessors.