Qualifications & Accreditations

As a Learning and Development specialist, there are a number of qualification and accreditation options that you can consider.

We have included an overview of the options available from SQA, and the Institute of Leadership & Management.

Whichever route you feel suits you best, we will support you as you complete your qualification. 

You can be confident that you will be working with an experienced learning and development specialist who understands your role and the challenges you face.

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Best Practise Workshops

We run a series of best practise workshops. 

These are designed to help learning and development specialists keep up–to-date with best practise.  The workshops also enable you to concentrate on areas where you could benefit from increasing your knowledge or hearing from the experiences of your peers.

Recent workshops have covered:

  • Identifying individual and group learning needs.
  • Planning, preparing and evaluating training programmes.
  • Best practise in group training.
  • Getting the most from coaching and mentoring.

Please get in touch if you would like to know more.

Consultancy

We can help you with:

Creating a Centre of Excellence

Best practise in training

Creating a SQA Centre of Excellence

Training Needs Analysis

Understanding blended learning

Developing standards

Developing Your Team

If you are responsible for a learning and development team, we can help you develop your team and grow the services that you can offer to your internal customers.

Please get in touch if you would like to know more.

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Tips for Success

How can I build up my training skills?

If you are new to learning and development, you may want to build up your own knowledge.

A good starting point for you could be to think about attending some best practise workshops.

We recommend you focus on the main areas of your role and then pick workshops that will help you develop these skills quickly.

Practical workshops, ideally mixing with peers in your industry, can be a good option.

Should I consider a SQA Learning and Development VQ?

The Learning and Development Vocational Qualifications offered by SQA are a good way for you to demonstrate your knowledge and prove your competence.

We also have course materials designed to help you improve your knowledge as you work towards the qualification.

You do not have to complete a whole qualification.  You might find it better to focus on individual units and build up your units this way.

As these are vocational qualifications, you also need to have enough opportunity in the work place to show you are competent.

Client Feedback

"Attending this course was both fun and informative. Train the trainer enables the pupil to look deeper into their own style of working and their own good/bad practice. Using tools like assessment, reflection, and demonstration on this course helps the pupil to identify barriers to learning, learning styles and highlights the importance of good communication.

The course identifies delivery of training as being key, and instruction, demonstration and coaching plays major roles in the delivery of effective training.

Self-awareness and an understanding of delivery i.e manner, pace, language and tone are highlighted as key to effective communication and I feel that this course has delivered on this front.

Attending this course has given a structure to the organisation and delivery of training that perhaps wasn't there before I attended this course. I would recommend this course to others as it gives you a good insight into learning styles of others, helps the trainer to plan ahead and leaves the trainer with a better understanding of the training process as well as a better understanding of their own style of practice. The course was delivered at a good pace and was not heavy going like some courses can be. All in all fun, well delivered and informative".

Robert McCallion
Training Officer
Baxters Food Group


"Working with one of the consultants from Polaris has given us the insight and tools to produce a training structure for our Air-side Operations department at Aberdeen Airport.

Individuals now have the confidence and skills required to deliver training to the team, individually or as part of a group. This is further supported by our trained assessors and verifiers.

Polaris were very professional and approachable in dealing with Aberdeen Airport."

Graham Simpson
Aberdeen International Airport


Case studies

SQA

We regularly run best practise workshops for training managers.  Many of the training managers have also then decided  to work towards the SQA Learning and Development Level 4 or Level 3.

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We have worked with OneSubsea for a while to help their supervisors develop their coaching and mentoring skills.

Need Help? Contact our Support Centre for more information