RARPA

RARPA (Recognising and Recording Progress and Achievement)

What is RARPA?

City Lit (and all adult education providers) collect evidence of our students’ learning on non-accredited courses. This process is called RARPA - Recognising and recording progress and achievement in non-accredited learning.

RARPA is partly a means of ensuring the quality of our provision – that students do learn and achieve on our courses even though there are no formal assignments, tests or exams. It applies to courses of 9 hours or more.

As importantly RARPA, supports good learning and teaching. We show

• we initially assess our learners, needs and learning goals
• we adjust the course accordingly
• we monitor learners’ progress, give support where necessary and give feedback
• learners achieve the learning outcomes – or their own learning goals - by the end of the course
•  we advise our learners on what they can do next

We have recently changed how we are collecting evidence. We have reduced the amount of formal paperwork we are asking tutors to produce. Instead, we are moderating a course from every tutor every 1 - 2 years. When moderated, we will ask tutors to provide concrete evidence of their students’ starting points and achievements. Details are below.

We hope you will find this a more useful, less time consuming and more realistic way of demonstrating (and celebrating!) the achievement of our learners.

What RARPA records should I keep for all my courses?

For every course you teach, you should

• Ask students to complete an Individual Record of Learning, Individual Learning Plan, or equivalent, at the beginning and end of each course. (Please stress to students that you need the IRL to help you plan the course to suit them.)
• Produce a group profile summarising each student’s starting points and any implications this has for your teaching.
• Keep planning docs – a scheme of work and/or lesson plans.
• At the end of the course, complete ‘My Recording of Achievement’ in ontrack.

We will no longer ask you to keep pre-set progress records for every session, but we expect as professional tutors you will still be doing the following:

• Regularly checking the progress of your students and supporting them to achieve to their potential.
• Using peer and self-assessment when appropriate.
• Getting feedback from your learners during the course on how they are experiencing learning.
• Keeping records of your learners’ progress in any way that is useful to you for planning.

What evidence do I need to provide when I am moderated?

Once every two years we will ask you to provide more concrete evidence of your students starting points and achievement. Your department will let you know at the beginning of your course that you are being moderated and the evidence you need to collect.

Below we summarise what will be needed – though this may vary with departments:

Checklist of evidence for RARPA moderation (Word)

Other documents you may need

Individual Group Profile and Initial Assessment form (Word)

Example completed Individual Group Profile and Initial assessment (Word)

Scheme of Work template (Word)

How to record your students’ achievement on EBS ontrack (pdf)

Reflecting on your students’ learning – proforma for moderation (Word)