waremark wrote:Rob C what do you do? Sounds interesting.
Ref levels, in my area I am convinced that an IAM F1rst is harder to achieve than Rospa Gold. There were 7 examiners present at a local IAM group meeting last week. Between them they had only given a handful of F1rsts. It is quite evident from the stats that this varies by region. I am sure that within IAM there has been a fair amount of work to achieve standardisation around the level of an IAM pass, but not much around the level of F1rst. The Regional Quality Managers who carry out Masters make it clear that the standard required to achieve Masters, let alone achieve Distinction, is significantly higher than F1rst. (Note that my comments are all about the minimum standard required to achieve a particular grade.)
The High Performance Course is not about achieving a particular standard so much as having the right attitude to attempting to become the best driver that you can be - and even allowing you to work out for yourself what 'best driver' means for you.
Hi Waremark
I work in the Fleet driver industry assessing and training drivers. I provide driver training courses to companies, local county councils, schools, universities etc. I do a lot of vehicle familiarisation, car & MPV, SAFED type courses, (safe and fuel efficient van driving), Midas minibus training courses, I'm also a trainer for the Energy Saving Trust and provide funded eco driving courses for companies. Interesting work, I get around the country and meet a lot of people.
Regarding IAM F1rst v Rospa Gold, I asked that question to my local IAM examiner and he said that he'd never had a Rospa gold holder get an IAM F1rst. From what he told me he'd had complaints from Rospa Gold members, especially as he had given a 19 year old who failed his IAM for speeding a F1rst on his second attempt.
It didn't make sense to me either when inexperienced drivers get a F1rst whilst Rospa gold members don't.
Mind you quite a few things that this examiner told me didn't make sense to me either
. I got the impression that examiner marking standards across the IAM are quite variable and that examiners aren't regularly check tested.
Do IAM regional quality managers sit in on some IAM tests or do they just leave the examiners to it?