As Head of Performance, Cat Sercombe and her team's portfolio includes qualifications in Drama, Communication Skills and the UK-based Arts Award.
Cat, you have been with Trinity since 2011 which is an amazing achievement. How did you start off your career at Trinity?
I joined Trinity as Qualifications Officer for Arts Award. I brought experience as an Arts Award adviser and NVQ assessor to the role having worked in higher education, the arts cultural sector and youth services developing learning programmes that supported young people and graduates to progress into further training or work. As a new member of staff, I was new to the world of qualification development, but being able to work on qualifications like Arts Award, that make a real impact on young people’s lives and future opportunities made working for Trinity the right career move for me.
I am always motivated to learn new things and develop my own skills and career path, which meant I could often be found contributing to staff working groups on everything from policy development through to designing new processes for quality assurance and discussions on developing our approaches to access and inclusion. Being an active member of staff groups meant that I was recognised quite early on for my contributions to the business and my role quickly extended to also encompass Artsmark, Arts Council England’s Flagship programme, for which Trinity had won a successful bid to deliver nationally.
Fast forward a few years and I was promoted to Head of Arts Award, initially as a maternity cover for which I took responsibility for the leadership of the national programme including management of the Arts Award panel of trainers and moderators. My current role is Head of Performance, where I am responsible for the development of our qualifications across Drama and the Professional Performing Arts globally alongside Arts Award. I have also taken on the additional responsibility of Deputy Designated Safeguarding Officer, which means I work as part a small team of individuals from across the business to ensure we have safe practice embedded into all our work, to support our staff, customers, and representatives across the world.
I have really embraced the opportunity to develop my career at Trinity and as such have been able to build a wide range of skills in qualification design, people management, quality assurance and digital innovation to name a few!
Your role as Head of Performance is to ensure that Trinity’s Performance offering embodies our mission as well as leading practice in the industry. What are some of the areas to consider?
Trinity’s mission is really central to our work, the performance team’s portfolio includes qualifications in Drama, Communication Skills and Arts Award. Designing awards that are available and accessible to the widest demographic of young people and adults globally is always front and centre when considering a new qualification or revising the existing portfolio. We work directly with our customers, international representatives, and leading sector experts to design qualifications and learning experiences that build real world transferable skills needed to be successful both personally and professionally. We want to ensure that both candidates and teachers have a really great experience using our qualifications.
Arts Award is a subject in which you have a particular fondness and familiarity with. Can you tell us more about what Arts Award is?
Arts Award is the only arts and leadership qualification of its kind. It is a suite of qualifications at 5 levels with each level tailored to different age groups and levels of experience which means young people can do the level that is the best fit for them. Arts Award is popular amongst young people as they can explore any art form that interests them and the activities and projects, they participate in can range from the traditional in visual arts and crafts, dance, and drama through to stock-frame animation, coding and broadcast media. For young people who choose to take the Silver and Gold levels, they get to plan and run their own practical arts leadership project, giving them a fantastic opportunity to learn what it takes to be responsible for a project, manage the people and resources and see their project come to life - a great first step supported by their Arts Award adviser to develop the skills and qualities needed to be successful in their future life and career.
The awards are designed so that young people can capture evidence of their participation in a portfolio, demonstrating how they have developed their knowledge and understanding, creativity and communication skills along the way, which makes Arts Award accessible to the widest range of young people as it encourages them to build their portfolio in a format that suits them.
I feel Arts Award is an important qualification as it opens a door to the arts and provides young people with a supportive way to explore their creativity, find a new passion or hone the skills they already have - there really is something for everyone.
How does Trinity’s examinations help our exam-takers gain skills for life?
Trinity’s graded exams and vocational qualifications are designed to support our candidates to develop a range of employability or soft skills which reach far beyond the exam day. We recognise that to have success in your personal, education or work life you need to be able to think critically, work in a team, have a range of different communication skills and be creative to enable you to effectively problem solve - skills we know employers require and are fundamental to having an effective workforce. Our qualifications build these skills as you prepare for the exam day and encourage candidates to reflect on their own learning, with them demonstrating in the exam how they have integrated these essential skills into their performance on the day or through their portfolio of work.
Trinity takes pride in our examinations being accessible to all. How do we achieve this?
Trinity wants to ensure that candidates of all ages and abilities can access our qualifications. We especially want to ensure those who are disadvantaged or may have a disability, or additional needs can participate in learning and gain qualifications to mark their achievements and success. All of our qualifications are designed with accessibility in mind and Arts Award in particular was designed with accessibility central to its mission. Trinity cares deeply about accessibility and to this end we recently launched the Awards and Certificates in Musical Development a range of qualifications that are fully accessible, inclusive music assessments, available to all music learners. These ground breaking awards provide those with profound learning difficulties the opportunity to have their musical achievements and progress formally recognised.
However, accessibility doesn’t just stop at the design of the qualifications, our teams work hard to ensure all customers are able to access our qualifications, whether that be through our support offers, webinars and resources for teachers, supporting them to scaffold their learning in the classroom or for UKI customers, through our Access Fund which provides small grants for candidates who may experience barriers to accessing our qualifications.
Are you a performer or do you play any instruments?
So, although it’s been a while since I performed on a stage, I’ve always been passionate about the arts and learning something new. I am dance trained and few years ago took the plunge and decided to learn a new dance genre - Lindy Hop! This has been great fun as it’s a great social scene and if you want to take part in showcases and festivals you can, but there is no pressure and it’s just a really great way to meet new people and learn a skill. I’ve been able to learn how to do partnered dance which is quite different from the ballet and tap training I did in my youth.
What is a fascinating trend that you’ve come across recently in the world of assessments?
I think with the developments in AI this poses some interesting opportunities and challenges for the awarding sector. At Trinity we have a major focus on the development of communication skills through all our qualifications, which makes the human skill of communication and the varying ways you can communicate a really interesting proposition that differentiates human skills from the skills that can be replaced by robots.
What is the best part about working for Trinity?
There are a few things. The people at Trinity are fantastic and there is a wealth of knowledge and experience amongst different individuals and teams. For someone new to the business everyone is incredibly supportive and helpful and with so much to learn about what we do and how we work, there is always someone on hand to help no matter how big or small the question. Another aspect of working at Trinity, is that we are working hard on developing our customer experience and transitioning qualifications into a digital offer, this means it’s a really exciting time to work here as there is plenty of scope to develop your skills and knowledge on really innovative projects that support us to grow our business.
“Everyone is incredibly supportive and helpful and with so much to learn about what we do and how we work, there is always someone on hand to help no matter how big or small the question.”