The Training Foundation wins 2005 Queen's Award for Enterprise - Innovation
The Training Foundation is the first organisation to be awarded the UK's most prestigious business accolade for a training skills qualification in the 40-year history of the Queen's Awards for Enterprise. The Trainer Assessment Programme (TAP) has been adopted by trainers from more than 1,000 organisations since its launch in 1998.
The Innovation Award recognises the creation and continuous development of TAP® by The Training Foundation since 1998 and its proven success in raising the quality of training across the spectrum of both private and public sector organisations.
What is the Trainer Assessment Programme, TAP®?
TAP® is revolutionising how training is being designed and delivered in the classroom, and how learners are being supported in learning centres and in the workplace. The basic premise is that, as in other professions, the skills of all professional trainers and those supporting learning should be measurable and assessable to best-practice standards.
TAP® is setting new high standards for trainers to achieve. Achievement of any of the six trainer certifications and Diploma within the Programme requires successful assessment of the trainer's skills against objective, best-practice models. These models focus on making training more learner-centred and participative.
TAP® is also uniquely addressing the training needs of the 85%+ of all trainers who are not primarily trainers but are subject matter experts with occasional training responsibility. By empowering them to deliver interactive, participative training, TAP® has converted thousands from 'presenters' to real trainers.
It works!!
Surveys of trainers that have converted to the TAP® methodology from their previous, traditional, training certification styles have consistently showed huge improvements in learner feedback and results. Following two surveys of over 1,500 TAP®-certified trainers;
• 96% said it had made "a significant difference" to the way they trained
• 90% said they used the TAP® methodology "most or all of the time"
• 87% said they received "better feedback from delegates at the end of the course".
As a result of the programme's unique ability to ensure high-quality, consistent learning in the workplace, many organisations have adopted TAP® and require all training to be carried out to the TAP® standard. The NHS and the DfES refer to it as 'a de facto standard in the UK' on their websites. More than sixty of the FTSE 100 companies now employ TAP®-certified trainers, many also having had senior staff trained to assess to the TAP® standards, ensuring the ongoing consistency of their trainers' performance.
Nick Mitchell, founder and Chief Executive of The Training Foundation, said; "It goes without saying that everyone is really thrilled by this accolade; it's not often that training gets into the limelight! And that's what we are most excited about - this Award puts the spotlight on training skills, for far too long overlooked as the engine of effective learning.'
"Research shows that around 90% of classroom learning effectiveness comes from the trainer's critical skills rather than subject knowledge, yet traditional trainer certifications have made no attempt to model these or ensure that trainers can use them. Far too much training has been lecturing, not training."
"In the past, subject matter knowledge was all too often the only requirement for someone to be called on to train others. This was unfair to everyone and not least the learners who gained little in terms of knowledge and skills transfer. Since 1998, we have seen more than 10,000 trainers and others supporting learning undertake intensive short-courses in the TAP® methodologies, be assessed to its standards, and achieve certification. Many of these have actually been in tears during their course, asking "Why didn't I know about this years go? All this time I've been lecturing, I've never been a real trainer!"
"If we extrapolate the number of individuals that are now receiving better quality training from those 10,000 trainers, we can see that several million people in the UK are now benefiting directly or indirectly each year from the TAP® programme. This is fantastically rewarding for us and is why we feel we are on a mission. But there's still a long way to go. We have only scratched the surface. The next ten years should be exciting!"