New National Occupational Standards

7th December 2009

New National Occupational Standards (NOS) relating to sports massage have been recently announced. D520 – Plan, apply and evaluate massage methods. D521 – Plan, apply and evaluate massage methods to prevent and manage injury. D522 – Plan, apply and evaluate complex massage/soft tissue methods. Occupational standards describe the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to undertake a particular task or job to a nationally recognised level of competence. Awarding bodies can use NOS to develop training and qualifications.  NOS will identify learning and skills needed in a particular sector or occupation and can act as the basis for qualifications. Education and training providers can map their courses and workshops against the relevant NOS and can also use NOS to develop courses basing the syllabus on the units of competence which make up the NOS. SPS contributed to the Working Group that formulated the new NOS.  SPS education programmes can be mapped to the new NOS: SPS/OCR Diploma and University Certificate of Advanced Professional Development (UCAPD) maps to D521 SPS/Teesside Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE) maps to D522