How is an apprenticeship examined or tested?

Apprenticeship Standards may have knowledge exams. In those cases, you receive a certificate per exam and they are normally booked in after your studies for the respective exam are complete.

The application of your knowledge and skills is primarily recorded by your work output from assignments that your trainer sets, and your tasks in the workplace. There is typically a desired format in which you should present your work, which collectively is called your portfolio. It should contain evidence of you having covered every aspect of your apprenticeship standard.

It can be difficult to prove your behaviour standards yourself, therefore your trainer and your employer will observe you, write witness statements, references and perhaps other documents to give your Assessor evidence of these things.

Finally, the Assessor will observe you at work and also interview you.

In some courses, a synoptic project is required. This is a project that you are given to complete under exam conditions, but it is ‘open book’. You are able to look at your previous work and use the internet. 

The assessment comes at the end of an apprenticeship and is called an End Point Assessment (EPA). Your employer must decide that you are ready for it before the training provider can enter you. If a portfolio is required, this must also be completed before you are entered or within a limited time frame afterwards (but before your final assessment).