AAT Association of Accounting Technicians 

Assistant Assessment Production Manager
(August - November, 2017

AAT asked Marina Pareas for support as an Assistant Assessment Production Manager to undertake some urgent work on their current assessments. This involved day-to-day project management of assessment production and deputising for the Assessment Production Managers in their absence.

The short-term project involved Marina overseeing some of the work on the amendments of the contents of Level 3 Advanced Diploma in Accounting and Level 4 Professional Diploma in Accounting units as they came in from subject matter specialists. She also checked and passed them on for quality assurance before production. She arranged, managed and facilitated a 2-day moderation event between subject matter specialists and moderators, and recorded the outcomes to ensure a record was maintained for compliance.

Marina co-ordinated the commissioning for the review and sign-off of units as well as a 2-day pre-test of examinations among accounting staff. The feedback on the pre-test results was collated and gathered into a report to support possible changes to the synoptic assessment as a result of the testing process.

She assisted the Assessment Production Manager by providing a report outlining the process of developing the units of the Advanced and Professional Diplomas to contribute to procedural reports produced for AAT senior management.

Marina was responsible for producing a project plan for the updating of advanced question types in the assessment platform system. From this plan it was possible to estimate the amount of time and resource needed to carry out this work given other work commitments in the team. This assisted in work planning and providing a realistic schedule for the work to be carried out.

Marina's final project before she left was to coordinate and project manage placing a series of password-protected assessment scenarios required by learners as part of their final assessments, on a dedicated webpage. The webpage could be accessed solely by tutors in preparation for the exams. This project went live just as Marina left AAT and was intended to reduce the administrative requirement for AAT staff.

Qualifications Development (June 2013 - September 2014)

Marina Pareas worked as a consultant within the Qualifications Development Team on a number of qualification development and policy projects. Working with teams made up of members from all departments, these included setting up and running projects to ensure that various qualifications were brought to the stage of delivery. These qualifications were the addition of a qualification to AAT’s Level 4 Apprenticeship to conform with then then new SASE requirements, the Level 2 Award in Accounting Skills to run your business, and Level 1 Certificate in Accounting.

In addition, Marina worked on a number of policy projects, including AAT’s general and university exemptions lists and policies, and producing position papers on various subjects for example the Apprenticeship Reforms proposed in early November 2013.

Interim Quality Assurance Role Conduct and Compliance (January - April 2013)

Marina Pareas Associates were responsible for re-engineering AAT malpractice policies and procedures, overseeing malpractice investigations, designing application procedures and templates for AAT’s new qualifications, managing the AAT training provider approval process; reviewing in excess of 20 UK and international applications, providing feedback and negotiating with potential centres and ultimately recommending whether or not to approve.

Download Project Management Portfolio