Hello, does anyone know the best way of getting nvq done?

ultinator · Jun 28, 2017

Leesparkykent · Jun 28, 2017

If you have over 5years experience then do the JIB mature candidate assessment.

burnzybubbles · Jun 28, 2017

yep thats what i've done, ive got 12 years on the tools but never bothered with nvq, id also advise if your a mature student to pay the extra and get the assesor to write your diary, i know many lads that have spent countless hours on the diary and to be honest it would be more cost effective to just work some extra saturdays to cover the cost.

i was lucky being on a big job and having a lot of experience to begin with but i got my on site assessments done in 5 weeks,.

Leesparkykent · Jun 28, 2017

burnzybubbles said:
yep thats what i've done, ive got 12 years on the tools but never bothered with nvq, id also advise if your a mature student to pay the extra and get the assesor to write your diary, i know many lads that have spent countless hours on the diary and to be honest it would be more cost effective to just work some extra saturdays to cover the cost.

i was lucky being on a big job and having a lot of experience to begin with but i got my on site assessments done in 5 weeks,.

Did you have to do the AM2?

burnzybubbles · Jun 28, 2017

Leesparkykent said:
Did you have to do the AM2?

iv still got to book the am2 and complete my knowledge section for my JIB qualification, but due to being busy at home and at work recently i'v not got it all finished.

the five weeks was just my onsite diary and having the assesor over to complete all the relevant sections.

ultinator · Jun 29, 2017

Hi thanks, that really useful.

I have mixed experience and been qualified for 5 years, self employed for 3.5 years. will that suffice?
I am 28 so I guess thats mature for a student now.

do i need to be JIB registered to get on that scheme?

Also, im looking for work that would help me to get this NVQ passed. Any advice on the best avenues to pursue?
(I started my NVQ, but the learning centre I attended liquidised over the weekend, lots of confused students and staff turned up on the monday to a closed business!)

Also would anyone be able to surmise the estimated costings of completing the NVQ, through either avenue?

Thanks everyone. very useful stuff

burnzybubbles · Jun 29, 2017

Yea that's more than enough, I think all told it worked out around £1500-£1700 including the AM2, it certainly isn't cheap, it can be done a lot cheaper if you make your own site diary, but I know countless lads that have spent 3-4 weeks+ in total doing the work to finish it and overall taking 1-2 years from start to finish, iirc it was an extra £700 to have the Assesor do my work and it was the best money I spent.

My advise would be to get on the biggest job you can with some duration, and speak to your supervisor and let him know your situation and if he will put you in different stages on the job for a week at a time, you need to cover first fix, second fix, and testing, to help your Assesor you need to take photos of you work and be in the picture, you need to be clearly doing something relative with all the correct PPE on.

Just go onto the JIB website and look for mature candidate section, or just google it and you should find the relative page, on there you should find company's that are running the scheme and they list them in county's so phone where is appropriate for yourself

ultinator · Jun 29, 2017

ha wow, that's fast - greatly appreciated too

.

To be fair, It's worth the investment as this NVQ has been a pain in the backside since day 1. I would be inclined to follow your advice and have the assessor write the diary? seems like a good choice.

In terms of location of work, would it make a difference if it was commercial/industrial/domestic?

I also have a mate that works in fire alarms as a subby for ADT. I might be able to hop on with his work for a period of time to help get the necessary things done. Do you think this ELV work would be acceptable?

Sorry for asking you directly all this - it's just you seem to know a thing or two about this, and been seemingly happy to impart your knowledge.

I kind of felt like without the NVQ its harder to get an agency job, and without a job its hard to get the NVQ..

Cheers for your help

burnzybubbles · Jul 2, 2017

Sorry for the delayed response, ideally a commercial job would probably be the best then industrial just because you need three different type of wiring and three different types of containment, a commercial property has a good mix of industrial and domestic so you should be able to easily cover all the basis.

Regarding the fire alarm work I guess if he did quite a range of installs you might cover enough types of installation, iirc I had pictures of me making off a cat5 cable, but I'm not sure how hey would take not working around LV for your NVQ.

It is worth the investment having the Assesor write your diary, any of the lads still doing there's at the moment where pig sick when I told them I'd finished in such short time, it did help that I had already prepared with lots of photos over time because I knew I'd be doing the portfolio at some point, plus the fact I originally paid the smaller fee to write my own diary but I've got such a busy life at the moment I never seemed to get any time to start it and just bit the bullet and phoned up the college to pay the extra, honestly best move I made.

I'm time served but unfortunately, everyone wants a jib electrician, I've also worked for the same fella for 11-12 years so it's not been a bother, but now even the contractors want to see all the cards, and in my experience having a gold card doesn't make you a good electrician, but unfortunately it's the way it is and you just have to go along with it.