THE EVALUATION PROCESS

The primary method for  assessing  whether an organisation meets the standards required for accreditation is an on-site evaluation carried out by the members of the accreditation board,who are appointed and trained by SATA. No organisation will be awarded full, while SATA's evaluations are key to assessing whether or not an organisation should be accredited or reaccredited, they are also intended to provide advice and guidance on the organisation's own framework of quality assurance and how this may be improved.The evaluation team members used are all educational experts with extensive knowledge  of  the  sector, and they  will  be happy to  share examples of best practice and suggest ways in which an organisation can continue to improve its provision in line with and  beyond  SATA's minimum standards.  Once  SATA  has authorised an evaluation to go ahead and determined the appropriate size and composition of the evaluation team, SATA will confirm the   evaluation  dates. Accreditation  or reaccreditation evaluations will be scheduled on days whenthe largest sample of training/teaching can be observed. SATA is required to give its evaluation team members at least three weeks' notice of an evaluation. The final decision about the dates.

THE EVALUATION TEAM

The evaluation team is carefully selected by SATA staff, taking into account their sector experience, quality assurance and  educational  evaluation  experience,  and  their  subject speciality.

SATA's evaluation team members and the head of the organisation being inspected are requiredto sign a declaration identifying any  conflicts of  interest and  to observe confidentiality with regardto the process and the outcome ofthe evaluation. The organisation is informed  of the names ofthe evaluation team members before the evaluation. The size of the evaluation team memberswill depend on the size and diversity of the organisation and its provision. The head of the boardof accreditation will be responsible for determining the schedule for the evaluation and forproducing the final evaluation report for consideration by the Accreditation Committee.