10th November 2009, 01:11 PM
The following comes from Kate Geary, IfA's Training and Standards Manager
"National Occupational Standards are units of competence which define what a competent person should be able to do within a given task or job role. The NOS for Archaeological Practice cover a wide range of different activities and are worded in such a way as to be flexible, so that they can be applied to almost any situation an archaeologist might work in. The Standards are made up of ?Units? which describe a task or activity; each unit is then subdivided into ?elements? and each element has a set of performance, knowledge and skills requirements which must be met in order to demonstrate competence.
For example, unit AC5 deals with basic fieldwork skills. The unit is called Contribute to intrusive investigation and is broken down into three elements: preparing for the investigation, undertaking it and recording. You can see the detail of the performance, knowledge and skills required for each element at http://www.ukstandards.org.uk/Find_Occup...osFindID=4.
As part of the unit, you would need to demonstrate (amongst other things) that you knew which equipment to use and how to set it up, you would need to show that you could identify features and that you could record them in an appropriate way to the required standard.
The NOS can be used to design training, to conduct skills audits and as the basis for job descriptions, as well as being the building blocks of the NVQ. NOS are the government?s preferred competency standards and exist across an almost bewildering range of sectors, including construction, engineering, management, retail ? even philosophy and theology! One way in which NOS could be used in archaeology is to identify the basic skills required by fieldwork staff.
The IfA has assessed its membership criteria for the three corporate grades against the requirements of the NVQ and has concluded that NVQ Level 3 requires a level of competence that is slightly higher than would be required for PIfA grade membership of the IfA and that NVQ Level 4 is slightly higher that AIfA grade. For more information about NOS and how they work in other sectors, see the UK Standards website at http://www.ukstandards.org.uk. The IfA is encouraging employers and academic institutions to use the NOS to design training and academic courses to ensure that they are vocationally relevant."
"National Occupational Standards are units of competence which define what a competent person should be able to do within a given task or job role. The NOS for Archaeological Practice cover a wide range of different activities and are worded in such a way as to be flexible, so that they can be applied to almost any situation an archaeologist might work in. The Standards are made up of ?Units? which describe a task or activity; each unit is then subdivided into ?elements? and each element has a set of performance, knowledge and skills requirements which must be met in order to demonstrate competence.
For example, unit AC5 deals with basic fieldwork skills. The unit is called Contribute to intrusive investigation and is broken down into three elements: preparing for the investigation, undertaking it and recording. You can see the detail of the performance, knowledge and skills required for each element at http://www.ukstandards.org.uk/Find_Occup...osFindID=4.
As part of the unit, you would need to demonstrate (amongst other things) that you knew which equipment to use and how to set it up, you would need to show that you could identify features and that you could record them in an appropriate way to the required standard.
The NOS can be used to design training, to conduct skills audits and as the basis for job descriptions, as well as being the building blocks of the NVQ. NOS are the government?s preferred competency standards and exist across an almost bewildering range of sectors, including construction, engineering, management, retail ? even philosophy and theology! One way in which NOS could be used in archaeology is to identify the basic skills required by fieldwork staff.
The IfA has assessed its membership criteria for the three corporate grades against the requirements of the NVQ and has concluded that NVQ Level 3 requires a level of competence that is slightly higher than would be required for PIfA grade membership of the IfA and that NVQ Level 4 is slightly higher that AIfA grade. For more information about NOS and how they work in other sectors, see the UK Standards website at http://www.ukstandards.org.uk. The IfA is encouraging employers and academic institutions to use the NOS to design training and academic courses to ensure that they are vocationally relevant."