Area Co-ordinator (ACO)

ASDAN is a charitable social enterprise whose mission is to create the opportunity for learners to achieve personal and social development through the achievement of ASDAN programmes, awards and qualifications, so as to further enhance their self-esteem, their aspirations and their potential contribution to their community.

Thanks to this brilliant and innovative concept, and a dedicated team of Central Staff, Regional Managers, Area Co-ordinators, Development Co-ordinators and other regional colleagues and teachers, ASDAN has proved to be a tremendous success story for the teaching profession – growing from just a handful of schools to more than 6,000 registered centres across the UK in 2009.    

The Central Office Team manages and administers the work associated with administrative operations, and promotional and moderation activity is delivered by colleagues working directly with centres in the regions.    

Many of our centres are schools and colleges, but an increasing number of training providers, voluntary sector agencies and prisons are now integrating ASDAN awards and qualifications into their curriculum and training/educational programmes.

ASDAN publishes a catalogue with more than 150 publication titles, supervises the moderation and verification procedures for all its awards and qualifications, ensuring compliance with the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator (Ofqual), and develops new curriculum resources and qualifications in response to the needs of the profession, in consultation with practitioners. 

ASDAN is approved as an Awarding Organisation for qualifications within the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), and the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), regulated by Ofqual. ASDAN is also approved by the regional regulators: DCELLS (Wales) and CCEA (Northern Ireland). 

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) also recognises the value of ASDAN programmes in developing and providing evidence for the Scottish “Core Skills” (particularly Working with Others), and a number of qualifications are listed in the Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework (SCQF).

ASDAN programmes and qualifications are also recognised by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and their counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland. When ASDAN qualifications were given formal GCSE equivalence and included in league tables from September 2004, inevitably this gave ASDAN a heightened status and credibility in the world of education. 

The Tomlinson Report (October 2004) highlighted ASDAN as an example of good practice in relation to the accreditation of wider activities, and this still has significance today. The QCA, now the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), makes reference to ASDAN in a number of reports in which ASDAN has been a key contributor, notably “Ways to Accredit Generic Learning”, jointly published with DCSF, which can be downloaded from the QCDA website.