Safety Training Awards

Awarding Organisation of The Swimming Teachers’ Association

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 STA, registered charity number 1051631 in England and Wales and SC041988 in Scotland

Moderation of Paperwork

Your course has been flagged for moderation as you do not hold Direct Claims Status (DCS).


What is moderation of paperwork?

Moderation is a form of External Quality Assurance (EQA) monitoring activity and is used to form part of the verification process for the regulated qualifications.

Safety Training Awards (STA) carry out moderation monitoring activities on course paperwork to support our external quality assurance strategy and Centre Assessment Standards Scrutiny (CASS) Strategy. We identify the frequency of moderations for all Approved Training Centres (ATCs) using a risk based system.

These quality assurance activities ensure all ATCs maintain a level of consistency and high standards. It also enables STA to monitor that the assessment process is being carried out correctly and the Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) is completing internal quality assurance monitoring activities in line with Safety Training Awards requirements.

Moderation is an external process to the ATCs internal procedures; therefore an ATC must continue to carry out Internal Quality Assurance activities prior to submitting the results to STA, even when the courses are being requested for moderation.

When a course is required for moderation no certificates will be issued to learners until moderation of paperwork has been completed and shows the required standard has been achieved.

Why is my course being called for moderation?

Your course has been flagged for moderation as you do not hold Direct Claims Status (DCS).

Safety Training Awards grant Direct Claims Status (DCS) to ATCs on a risk based approach. STA will grant DCS to an ATC when they have met the following requirements as a minimum, (please note that this is not an exhaustive list):

  1. Have appropriate workforce in place to deliver, assess and quality assure STA regulated / accredited qualifications;
  2. Have all mandatory policies and procedures are in place to protect the interests of learners throughout the learner journey;
  3. Have effective Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) procedures in place, including an effective IQA strategy and IQA sample plan for all STA qualifications that will be delivered, assessed, and quality assured by that ATC – A copy of these documents must be uploaded to the ATC’s Document Hub within STA Online or provided to STA upon request. These documents must be continually updated to reflect the ongoing performance within the centre;
  4. Has a good track record of delivering and assessing qualifications and there is evidence that the centre personnel have consistently shown integrity in the delivery and assessment of STA qualifications;
  5. There have been no previous issues relating to the delivery and assessment of qualifications;
  6. No sanctions have been made against the ATC.

Once the above criteria has been met and it has been established there is no risk to the delivery and assessment of the regulated qualifications and / or any risk to the learners, the new ATC may be granted DCS and routine moderations will apply on a risk based system.

It is not permissible to rely on Safety Training Awards to moderate the paperwork for every course with no effort being made to achieve DCS status.

Existing ATCs who may or may not have been granted DCS and apply to add an additional qualification to their portfolio will be moderated on the first three courses as stated above.