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Level 3 NVQ Certificate in the Fabrication of Glass Supporting Structures
The Level 3 for the fabricator who runs the section: sets the machines up, monitors the line, sorts the technical problems and signs off the quality on windows, doors, conservatories, screen walling or curtain wall components. Assessed on the shop floor you already run, awarded by GQA. No college and no exam.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our Level 3 NVQ Fabrication of Glass Supporting Structures different
About this qualification
The Level 3 NVQ Certificate in the Fabrication of Glass Supporting Structures is the recognised qualification for the experienced fabricator who runs a section: the aluminium or uPVC fabricator, framemaker, conservatory, screen walling or curtain walling fabricator who, in GQA's words, often takes a technical supervisory role and carries out the quality checks. It is not taught. It records, against the national occupational standards, the level of work a Level 2 does not: setting up the equipment for each operation, monitoring and controlling the operations of others, identifying and putting right technical problems, developing new work procedures, making sure the materials and people are there when the line needs them, and assessing the quality of what comes in and what goes out.
It is awarded by GQA Qualifications, the awarding organisation for the glass and fenestration industry and, since 2017, the body that issues the CSCS card for those trades. GQA assess it in the context of windows and doors, curtain walling, screen walling or conservatories, whichever your factory makes. It is a Certificate rather than a Diploma, so it is smaller than the installation Diplomas: three mandatory units and options from three groups, 33 credits in all. The fabrication options are the same hands on units as the Level 2, because the Level 3 fabricator still cuts, joins and assembles; what is added is the setting up, monitoring, problem solving and quality units.
Assessment is a portfolio of set up sheets, production records, quality reports, the problems you solved and witness testimony from your own section, an observation of you running it and a professional discussion with your assessor, most of it from your phone and by video call. There is no fixed duration: you register any week and finish as quickly as your section produces the evidence.
- Nothing new, if you are already running a fabrication section. The qualification records what you do rather than teaching it
- How to evidence the Level 3: what a set up sheet, a production record, a record of a technical problem you put right and a witness testimony from your production manager each prove
- Which options your section already produces, from setting up and monitoring to new procedures and quality, and which give you the most credits for the least effort
- Where the Level 2 sits, and whether your week is still inside it
How completing this qualification helps you
- The Level 3 NVQ Certificate in the Fabrication of Glass Supporting Structures, certificated by GQA with the units you evidenced
- Eligibility for the Gold Skilled Worker card, issued by GQA, once you have passed the CITB Operatives test, for the fabricator whose work takes them to site
- A temporary CSCS card on registration, in case you need one while you complete
- A Level 3 that never expires and stands as the industry's proof that you can run fabrication to the standard, for employers, the quality schemes your factory works under and the step to production management
Who is it for?
Senior fabricators, section leaders, chargehands, setters and quality checkers in window, door, conservatory, screen walling and curtain wall factories, in uPVC, aluminium or timber, who run the section without a formal qualification behind it, and the fabricator the factory sends to sort out a new product or a difficult order. If you fabricate to a good standard but someone else sets up, checks and sorts the problems, the Level 2 is the honest fit.
Entry requirements. There are no formal entry requirements and you do not need the Level 2 first. What you do need is live fabrication work at this level to evidence from, because every unit is assessed on real production: the machines you set up, the problems you solved, the quality you signed off, your production manager's word. The initial assessment below confirms this before you pay anything.
Ready to find out if you qualify?
The initial assessment takes a couple of minutes and nothing is typed: you click through what you do and what you can evidence, and it tells you the pathway, the level and what to gather. Or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Initial assessment
Check you qualify, in a couple of minutes
Nothing to type. Click through what you do on the shop floor and what you can evidence, and it shows you the options that fit and the evidence your assessor will ask for. It is about what you can evidence, not a test: anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer. These answers are your initial assessment, and you can email yourself a PDF of it.
The online check needs JavaScript. Without it, tell us what you do and we will run the initial assessment with you over the phone.
What you evidence
The units behind the qualification
Three units are mandatory, worth 12 credits: promoting and maintaining health and safety, communicating and working with others, and improving the work of the organisation through resources, communication and working relationships. You then evidence at least 11 credits from group 1 (the hands on fabrication units: preparing equipment, processing, joining, assembly, coatings), at least 8 from group 2 (setting up equipment, monitoring and controlling operations, technical problems, new procedures, resources) and at least 2 from group 3 (checking or assessing quality). 33 credits minimum, 159 guided learning hours, 330 hours total qualification time. It is a Certificate, so it is smaller than the Level 3 Fenestration Installation Diploma at 38 credits. Nothing is taught: each unit is evidenced from your own work.
The three units everyone completes (12 credits)
- T/600/7363 Promote and maintain health and safety in a glass or glass related working environment (4 credits)
- A/600/7364 Communicating and working with others in the glass and related working environments (3)
- R/600/8262 Improve the work of the organisation through the use of resources, communication and working relationships in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
Pick at least 11 credits from these: the fabrication
- L/600/7661 Prepare equipment, machinery and tools for the fabrication of glass supporting systems (3)
- R/600/7743 Process materials for fabricating glass supporting systems (3)
- Y/600/7744 Fabricate glass framing and supporting systems by joining (4)
- D/600/7745 Fabricate glass supporting systems by assembly (4)
- A/600/7669 Apply coatings or treatments to products and materials used in the fabrication of glass supporting systems (4)
- The same hands on units as the Level 2. Joining plus assembly plus preparing equipment is the usual eleven
Pick at least 8 credits from these: running the section
- M/600/7748 Set up equipment for operations in the fabrication of glass supporting systems (4)
- Y/600/8408 Monitor and control operations in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
- J/600/7657 Identify and rectify technical problems in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
- K/600/7652 Develop new work procedures in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
- Y/600/8151 Ensure resources are available to meet work requirements in a glass or glass related working environment (3)
- This is what makes it a Level 3. A setter usually evidences set up plus technical problems; a section leader evidences monitoring and control plus resources
Pick at least 2 credits from these: quality
- H/600/7746 Check the quality of products used in the fabrication of glass supporting systems (2)
- A/600/7655 Assess the quality of materials and components in a glass or glass related working environment (4)
- Either meets the minimum. Assessing incoming materials is the Level 3 unit; checking the products is the Level 2 one
Method of assessment
How the Level 3 glass fabrication NVQ is assessed
Competence based, which means no exam and no written test. You build a portfolio of evidence from the section you run, your assessor watches you run it and you talk the knowledge through in a professional discussion. The online check above is your initial assessment; there is no separate skills scan.
1. Initial assessment, online
The questions you click through above are your initial assessment. They tell us which options your section already produces, whether you have enough live work at Level 3 to evidence them, and whether your week is really still the Level 2.
2. Register with GQA
We register you with GQA under qualification number 500/7821/5. That registration can also release a temporary CSCS card in case you need one on site, once we have your HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the right postal address.
3. Evidence from your own section
Set up sheets and machine settings you decided, production records and schedules you monitored, records of the technical problems you found and put right, new procedures or method changes you wrote, material and labour requests, quality reports and rejects you signed off, cutting lists and job sheets, delivery notes, witness testimony from your production manager, the RAMS and machine safety records you brief, the CoSHH sheets for the materials on your section. Your assessor tells you exactly what each unit needs.
4. Workplace observation
Your assessor comes to the factory and watches you run the section: setting up a machine for a new profile, checking the line and the operators, dealing with a problem as it happens, inspecting incoming material and finished frames, and records what they see against the standard.
5. Professional discussion
A recorded conversation about why you run the section the way you do. It covers the knowledge a photograph cannot show: why the machine is set that way for that profile, how you decided a batch was out of specification, what changed when you wrote a new procedure, how you keep the line safe.
6. Certificate, then the card
Internal quality assurance, then GQA issue the certificate. If your work takes you to site, pass the CITB Operatives test and apply to GQA for the Gold Skilled Worker card.
After the qualification
The Gold card, if your work takes you to site
Most fabricators work in the factory and a CSCS card is not something the factory asks for; the certificate stands on its own. If your work does take you to site, to fabricate, to survey a problem or to fit, the card matters, and since 2017 the CSCS card for the glass and fenestration trades is issued by GQA rather than by CSCS direct. At Level 3 it is the Gold CSCS Q-Card, Advanced Craft, it carries the CSCS logo and it is checked the same way at the gate. It needs the Level 3 qualification and a pass in a health and safety test taken within the last two years, either the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Operatives or GQA's own test. We book the right one for you. GQA issue their own CSCS cards, so the certificate and the card both come from GQA, and the card carries the CSCS logo and is read on site like any other.
You do not have to wait for the certificate to be on site. GQA issue a temporary CSCS card as soon as we register you, in case you need one while you complete, and post it to you direct. We pick up the cost. You give us your HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the exact postal address, because GQA send it once and we will not pay for it twice if the address is wrong. It is not a free Gold card: it lasts up to twelve months and the Gold card follows the certificate.
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test, Operatives level, booked with us, if you need the card
- Gold Skilled Worker card application, which we make to GQA for you, valid five years
- Temporary card on registration, in case you need one, posted by GQA
- The Level 3 Occupational Work Supervision next, if you have moved from running the section to supervising the factory floor
Level 3 NVQ Fabrication of Glass Supporting Structures FAQs
Level 3 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework is the same level as A levels and an advanced apprenticeship. It is a competence qualification rather than an academic one, so it proves you can run fabrication to the standard rather than that you have studied it, which is what employers and the quality schemes want from a senior fabricator.
No. If your week already evidences the Level 3, you register straight onto it. The Level 2 is assessed on fabricating to a good standard; the Level 3 is assessed on running the section: setting up, monitoring, sorting the technical problems, new procedures and quality. The initial assessment on this page tells you which is the honest fit before you pay.
No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the section you already run, through documents and photographs from your own production, an observation of you working and a professional discussion with your assessor.
Only if your work takes you to a construction site. In the factory nobody asks for one and the certificate stands on its own. If you do need one, GQA issue the Gold Skilled Worker card against this qualification, as the Gold CSCS Q-Card, once you have passed the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Operatives within the last two years, then the card application, which we make to GQA for you. The Level 2 gets the Blue Skilled Worker card.
Not to the units. GQA assess the qualification in the context of whichever products your factory fabricates, and the certificate is the same. It matters to the evidence, because your set up sheets, production records and quality reports come from your own line, and your assessor plans the units around what that line produces.
Set up sheets and machine settings you decided, production records and schedules you monitored, records of the technical problems you found and put right, new procedures or method changes you wrote, material and labour requests, quality reports and rejects you signed off, cutting lists and job sheets, delivery notes, witness testimony from your production manager, the RAMS and machine safety records you brief, and the CoSHH sheets for the materials on your section. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing.
You carry on from the next order. Evidence can come from more than one job and your assessor plans the units around what your section will produce next: a new profile to set up for, a batch to inspect, a procedure to write. Anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer, and the initial assessment shows it before you pay.
Yes. Fabricators can be invoiced and can put the whole shop floor through as one booking, Level 2 and Level 3 together. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers, and we check what applies before you commit. Self employed fabricators pay direct, with interest free instalments if you want them.
£950 + VAT. That is the whole qualification: registration with the awarding body, your assessor, the visits, the portfolio and the certificate. There is no separate exam fee and no course fee on top, because there is no course to attend. The CSCS card is applied for separately and CSCS charge their own fee for it.
Yes, and for an experienced fabricator working on structural and bespoke supports that is the normal route. There is no set length. You are assessed on the work you are already doing, so the pace is set by how quickly the evidence comes together rather than by a timetable. People who already have photographs, job records and a supervisor who will sign a witness statement often finish inside a few weeks. Nobody is held back waiting for a term to start.
Your assessor comes to you, on your own jobs, in your own working week. They watch you set up and run the work, take photographs, ask you why you did it that way, and record it against the units. Between visits you upload evidence and your assessor tells you what is still missing. There is no college, no classroom and no written exam.
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Putting several people through?
One assessor and one invoice for the whole team
Group registrations are common on frameworks and large sites. We assess on site so nobody leaves the project, and we handle the awarding body, the certificates and the cards in one place.