NCFE External Quality Assurance Report 2024

“The centre continue to uphold their professionalism in delivering a qualification which fully meets NCFE requirements”

– NCFE Annual Report

These were some of the comments made by the External Quality Assurer, Carole Lovelock, in our 2023-2024 Annual External Quality Assurance Report.

“A rigorous and robust assessment method has been evidenced…”

“a range of resources…. of an excellent standard.”

I'm extremely proud to announce the results of our annual review and audit by NCFE.

The team involved from administration, through to management, student support and each of the tutors and assessors have worked extremely hard to deliver training and assessments at the highest standards, and this was reflected in our report from NCFE that had no required actions and only one small recommendation for next year.

Our 2024 EQA visit was on February 14th 2024. We received our report on March 2nd, informing us that we had passed – once again with flying colours.
(That means there were no required corrective actions and plenty of praise for the College, our staff and way of operating).

What is the NCFE Annual Review?
Each year we have to go through the extensive and rigorous process of having an external “audit” from NCFE for our customised qualifications: the Level 4 Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and the Level 5 Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy.

Most other hypnotherapy training schools and colleges simply issue their own qualification and print the certificates off on their office printer.
We started working with NCFE in 2007 to create the first ever Level 4 Diploma in Hypnotherapy offered by a private training school.

In 2023, again in collaboration with NCFE, we developed the existing diploma into a new Level 5 Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy – and redesigned a simpler Level 4 Diploma qualification.

However the process does not end there – each year we are audited by NCFE with regard to both our College policies and operation and the delivery of our particular qualifications, both the training and the assessment process.

Why is this important for you?

Externally accredited or verified qualifications assure learners that training schools are meeting standards and operating with good consistent procedures. The standards for qualifications – in terms of length and level – are set by the government-regulated OfQual. Customised qualifications, like ours, have to meet those standards (e.g. a Diploma must be a minimum of 370 hours total qualification time).
Our team of assessors all must be marking student assessments at the same level; which requires that we internally review the consistency of that marking with a blind sampling at least twice a year.

As a training college there is also an Annual Monitoring Review which covers all our policies and procedures. There are 20 quality criteria that as a College we have to meet.

This is in addition to the audit of our qualifications: both training and marking of assessments.

Achievements for 2024

1: Annual Monitoring Review
– 20 criteria to be met:

The College Team excelled in meeting all of the NCFE 20 criteria that are part of the Annual Monitoring Review. 

2: Internal Quality Review of Qualifications:

No actions were required from NCFE with regard to the internal quality of delivering training courses and assessing students. 

Some of the comments from the report:

“The centre have provided an impressive and detailed learner journey document which includes a welcome video, an overview of online learning, essential learning requirement, guidelines for onboarding and meeting their coach and a comprehensive and detailed curriculum overview and a guide to the planned programme of delivery. This is a very professional, comprehensively detailed and beautiful document which provides increased clarity to the learner.”

“A rigorous and robust assessment method has been evidenced…”

“A good range of evidence has been provided which is beautifully presented and demonstrates the learners' clear understanding of the rationale, function and application of hypnotherapy…”

“Excellent feedback is annotated on learner evidence after each question….”

“The centre have provided a range of resources which support delivery including a curriculum overview of content per session and detailed slides of each workshop. These are of an excellent standard. “

“The centre continue to uphold their professionalism in delivering a qualification which fully meets NCFE requirements. I am delighted that you continue to take on board feedback and develop your already excellent practice.”

“Thank you to Mark, Fabienne, Shelley, Jacqueline and Sophie for facilitating today's review, it has been a pleasure to work with you again.

I can confirm your centre will continue to be rated low risk and will be reviewed again in one year.”