"Awarding bodies love OneFile - we have yet to encounter an awarding organisation who is not fully satisfied with OneFile."
Milton Keynes College started using OneFile in December 2014 for their apprenticeship provision. Their use of OneFile has been extended to all NVQs and workplace learning. Tracy Matthews, Director of Apprenticeships, describes how they use OneFile at their centre.

We use OneFile across the board.

"OneFile is used across the board for health & social care, childcare, engineering – including both manufacturing and vehicle maintenance – construction, IT, hairdressing and barbering, beauty, hospitality, sport, teaching and learning (including TAQA) and business. Our use of OneFile has been extended to all NVQs and workplace learning.

"We aim to continue to deliver apprenticeships using OneFile as we transition our offer to apprenticeships standards from May 2017."

Why OneFile?

"The key factors we considered when choosing an eportfolio were: ease of use, reliability and support provided. As we use OneFile for all of our apprenticeship provision, we had to be sure that the platform was easy to use for students of all backgrounds and capabilities – as well as 100% reliable.

"We also needed an eportfolio with good security that provided robust evidence for audit purposes. We’ve developed how we use OneFile over time and now, we believe, use its full functionality. We have developed customised ILPs which have reduced the paperwork used by staff in the field in a variety of forms – we have tried to create electronic forms for as much of the paperwork involved in funded delivery as possible.

"We now have a bank of templates to support both consistency and efficiency. The reviews, journals and timesheets are all used to provide transparency of student progress, support, barriers to learning and celebrations of success."

Awarding bodies love OneFile.

"We have yet to encounter an awarding organisation who is not fully satisfied with OneFile. In fact, OneFile helps us to ensure we have the information needed for a successful AO visit at our fingers. A number of our EQAs are happy to sample remotely, which has helped us claim achievements which would have had to wait for centre visits previously."

Information at your fingertips.

"One of our key challenges under the current Common Inspection Framework is knowing the progress of our students – having this at a click of the mouse is invaluable. This has improved our forecasting of overall and timely success and improved our management of at-risk apprentices.

"We would like to see more employers actively engaged in OneFile. The team are always delighted when they see employer activity within the portfolio and have the apprentice’s progress to hand at the review."

OneFile offers unlimited support.

"One of the benefits of OneFile is that all staff have unlimited support. OneFile’s support team are patient and helpful, this is really important for staff who spend a lot of their working time in the field. I like the fact we have an Account Manager who knows our college well, and our support visits help us to keep up to date with changes to the software and learn about good practice seen at other providers."

If I could speak to centres still assessing on paper, I would say – you’re mad!

"No doubt it is hard work to make the shift to a new technology, but once it’s done and fully implemented you will never look back! "

Find out more about OneFile's eportfolio.