First, don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re not the first to fail an assessment and you certainly won’t be the last. Failing an assessment does not define whether you are a good rope tech or not. It's another opportunity to learn, improve, and to be better. Here is quote that I came across in a book that I've been reading (Principles by Ray Dalio).
"If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing your limits, and if you’re not pushing your limits, you’re not maximizing your potential."
We understand that sometimes, 4 days of training is not enough to be ready for your assessment. There is a lot to learn, practice and remember. Sometimes, you may feel you need 1-2 more days of training before assessing. If during your training, your instructor recommends you do more training, we can re-schedule you in on a different week. This will help alleviate any pressure and give you some extra time to practice. Plus, if there is a open gym in between your training weeks, you can take advantage of that too!
So what happens when you do go for your assessment and you fail? You do a re-assessment! Here's our re-assessment policy:
PacRopes Re-assessment Policy
IRATA
IRATA students who failed their assessment have 60 days to do their next assessment. If you do not re-assess within 60 days, you will have to do the whole course again and pay the full price (YIKES!). Your IRATA Assessor may have written on your assessment form, a certain number of extra training days before your next assessment. These must be completed prior to your next assessment. We will arrange the training to be in the same week as your re-assessment.
SPRAT
SPRAT students who fail their re-evaluation use to have to wait 7 days to do their evaluation. However, SPRAT has recently removed that waiting period and you can now evaluate once per day. We recommend that you come back as soon as your schedule allows so that the skills remain fresh in your mind.
We have various courses each month so we can accommodate your training and re-assessment within a month.
There is a cost to your re-assessment, which you will be made aware of during the registration process.
Why is there a cost for the re-assessment?
I understand it's frustrating to have failed and then have to pay more money to come back and re-assess. The price of the re-assessment is to cover the costs on our end for your Assessor or Evaluator. This is what your re-assessment cost would be covering:
- The IRATA Assessor or SPRAT Evaluator fee. Both IRATA and SPRAT require a independent third party to come and run the assessment or evaluation so that it is impartial to the training we provide for you. Each time you do an assessment or evaluation, we have to pay the Assessor their fee and any other travel costs associated with bringing them here. There is a limited number of qualified IRATA and SPRAT Assessors so sometimes due to availability, we may have to bring them in from out of town.
- Registration fee. IRATA and SPRAT have registration fees for each candidate, whether that candidate passes or fails.
- Additional trainers. In order for us to maintain a good candidate to instructor ratio, we will bring in extra trainers to accommodate re-assessment training in addition to the regular training happening that week. Each re-assessment comes with two days of training at no additional cost. We provide this because it gives you better peace of mind having those extra practice days, and gives you a chance to get back into the head space before walking into your re-assessment. In addition, we've found that with time in between assessments, you can easily forget a lot of details.
Our re-assessment cost allows us to continue giving you the best training and service.
What is the process for signing up for a re-assessment?
Your Assessor and/or Evaluator will sit you down, talk about what went wrong and offer advice as to what will help you be successful next time. Then, please make sure you touch base with your Trainer and have the same conversation. Take as much advice in as you can so you can help better prepare yourself next time. You’ll be given a 60 day window to come back to satisfy any requirements for further training assigned by your Assessor and give your Assessment another shot.
After you've had a chance to talk to your Trainer and Assessor/Evaluator, come talk to us in the office! We'll figure out the next available date for your re-assessment which includes two days of additional training regardless of what was recommended, just to make sure you’re ready. We aim to support all our techs through every step of the certification process.
There’s one other option you should be aware of:
If the assessment you failed was for an upgrade, during that same assessment you could ask for permission to renew your current certification instead. So for example, if you failed an upgrade assessment for IRATA L3, you may have the option of using that assessment to recertify as an IRATA L2. It will be up to the assessor’s discretion whether they give you this opportunity, but it is an option.
To read the source text for this blog, please refer to 4.7 in the TACS. If you have any additional questions, please free to send us an email.
If you need any extra support head over to our student resources section to access all the training information!
