Assessment & Certification

What you receive at the end depends on which kind of course you took. The difference matters a great deal, so please be sure which one you are enrolling on.

1. A regulated qualification, such as a VTCT qualification. These sit on the UK's regulated qualifications framework and are overseen by Ofqual. We act as an approved centre for the awarding organisation.
2. One of our own courses, such as a short course. We design these, we assess them, and we issue the certificate in our own name. A certificate of this kind is not an Ofqual-regulated qualification.

Each course page says which kind it is. If you are not sure, please ask us before you pay, at info@taitam-d.com.

A vocational qualification measures competence, not time spent. You have to show that you can actually meet each assessment criterion in each unit. The evidence for that comes from:

• your portfolio of evidence and your record of practical work
• your assessor observing you working, on courses with a practical element
• oral or written questioning, and written assignments

Working through the course videos counts toward the qualification's Total Qualification Time and shows you have studied the material. It is never evidence that you are competent, and it can never stand in place of assessment. The system records how far through the videos you are, but that record is not an assessment result.

• One of our assessors decides whether your evidence meets the criteria. Assessors must hold the qualifications the awarding organisation requires.
• An internal quality assurer samples those decisions. These two roles are always held by different people, so that nobody checks only their own judgement.
• An external quality assurer from the awarding organisation samples our centre's work as well. If your work is selected you may be asked to attend or to provide further evidence.

These quality checks can add time before your certificate is issued. That is normal for a regulated qualification, and it is part of what makes your certificate worth something.

If your evidence does not yet meet the criteria, your assessor will tell you what is missing and you will get the chance to improve it and submit again. Not meeting a criterion first time is a normal part of the process, not a failure.

If a reassessment or a re-registration with the awarding organisation carries a fee, we will always tell you the amount in writing beforehand.

• For a regulated qualification, the awarding organisation issues your certificate. We do not. We submit your result to them and handle the process for you.
• Your certificate shows the qualification title as it appears on the official register, and identifies both you and the certificate uniquely.
• For our own courses we issue the certificate ourselves, and anyone can check that it is genuine using the verification link or code printed on it.
• Our certificates are issued in English only. You therefore need a name written in Roman letters (A-Z) on your profile before a certificate can be issued to you. If it is not set, or is written in another script, we will not issue the certificate yet, and your My Learning page will show that no certificate has been recorded.
• You choose how your own name is spelled. We do not transliterate it or pick a spelling on your behalf, because how a person's name is spelled belongs to the person whose name it is.
• Please check the spelling of your name before your certificate is issued. The name is written onto the certificate at the moment it is issued, and an issued certificate cannot be edited. If you find that the name on your certificate is wrong, please contact us at info@taitam-d.com.
• For a regulated qualification, re-registering or having a certificate reissued by the awarding organisation may carry a fee. If it does, we will always tell you the amount in writing beforehand.

The evidence you submit must be your own work. Copying, having someone else do it for you, or falsifying evidence is assessment malpractice, and we are required to report it to the awarding organisation.

If a result turns out to be wrong because of malpractice or maladministration, the awarding organisation can withdraw a certificate that has already been issued, however long ago that was.

If you disagree with an assessment decision you have the right to appeal. Please follow these steps in order:

1. Talk to your assessor first. Most questions are resolved at this stage.
2. If that does not settle it, appeal in writing to info@taitam-d.com within 20 working days of being given your result, saying why you disagree.
3. Your appeal is considered by someone who was not involved in the original decision, and we will give you the outcome in writing.
4. If you are still not satisfied you can take your appeal to the awarding organisation — but you must complete our process first, which is their own requirement.

Appealing will not count against you, and we will not treat you differently because you used this right.

Your assessment records are designed so that they can only be added to — never edited or deleted after the fact. That is what makes a result impossible to forge, and what lets anyone check who decided what, and when.

Because of that, if you ask us to erase your personal data we will remove the details that identify you, but we cannot delete your assessment evidence or a certificate already issued. Sections 7 and 8 of our Privacy Notice (POL-PRIV) explain this in full.