Preparing for Stage One visits

To prepare for your Stage One visit:

  • Make sure you have watched our Introduction to the Scheme video.
  • Study the competencies that will be assessed in your next visit, including the evidence required and the indicators. You can see these on assessment frameworks in each visit section.
  • Your assessor will contact you through the Scheme for Registration section in your My College area. This is where you can see the date and time of your upcoming visit.
  • In order for a visit to take place you must accept the visit by logging in to your My College area. Once the visit has taken place you must confirm this by pressing the orange ‘Confirm visit’ button. This will ensure you can progress to the next part of the Scheme.
  • Arrange to complete any witness testimonies with one of your supervisors.
  • Complete any reflective accounts.
  • Ensure your logbook and reflective portfolio are up-to-date.
  • Complete and upload your assessment framework, visit plan, logbook, witness testimonies and reflective accounts to your assessor a week before the visit.
  • If you have anonymised patient records, also send through the anonymised patient record supervisor declaration form.
  • If it is visit two, three or four, read the action plan from your previous visit.
  • Make sure your supervisor knows the time and date of your visit, and that they have completed your supervisor review scores.

To prepare for a remote visit:

  • Find a quiet space to complete the assessment. This can be in your practice or at home.
  • Make sure you have access to a computer or tablet with a camera.
  • Have a form of photo ID ready for your assessor.
  • Make sure you have all your documentation needed for your remote visit, ready to share with your assessor.
  • You will be required to sign a declaration when returning your visit plan to your assessor that you will not cheat or engage in misconduct, and that you will not record or share elements of your assessment with others.
  • You will be required to sign a separate declaration when submitting a Reflective Account, declaring that it is all your own work and has not been plagiarised. These will be regularly and randomly sampled by assessors and senior assessors.
  • Make sure your supervisor is available to join at the end of your visit for assessor feedback.

You will need to confirm that you are alone in the room. If appropriate, you can use your camera to show that you are alone.

You must keep your camera on at all times. If you deliberately turn off your camera without prior agreement, your assessor has the right to terminate your assessment.

Watch the video

Changing or cancelling a Stage One visit

If you need to change the date of your assessment visit, please make sure that you let us know at education.help@college-optometrists.org at least 15 days before the date of visit. Otherwise you will be asked to pay a cancellation fee.

If you feel that there are exceptional circumstances for the cancellation, please email the College education team with any supporting evidence, as soon as possible.

You should also inform your assessor of any exceptional circumstances through the messaging system.