Common Questions we get: Who is the course accredited by?

Who is the course accredited by?

It is important to research and find out if the course is accredited through a recognised awarding organisation regulated through CIMSPA. By doing this, you will at least know that the qualification is recognised by employers, and you will be able to access jobs and gain suitable insurance.

There are many awarding organisations, but the current CIMSPA accredited ones are NCFE, YMCA Awards, Active IQ, VTCT, Innovate awarding, Transcend Awards and Focus Awards. Any others that cannot evidence that they are accredited by CIMPSA may not be delivering regulated and recognised qualifications, which means employers won’t recognise them. Be careful of training companies offering CPD-endorsed qualifications; these are not usually recognised for employment across all employers.

There are also differences between the CIMSPA accredited awarding organisations. Some, keep up to date and review qualifications to ensure they reflect the latest industry guidance, where others still run older versions that may not have been updated for quite a few years. This is harder to ascertain, but you could find out how many guided learning hours the qualification has and compare this to others. This way, you can find out how detailed and thorough each qualification is, you would be surprised to know that some qualifications for personal training can be hugely different, some can be as low as 150 hours while others into the 300 + hours, which means they are over twice the size.

Envisage is an Enhancing 3-star education partner with CIMSPA, this is their highest level of accreditation. We've achieved this by having regular reviews with CIMPSA in which they assess the courses we deliver.