With this package it is within 8 business days, so you will wait a maximum of 8 business days to get your submitted assessments back, and while there are no guarantees, we often get then back to you earlier than that. They talk about it a lot in our reviews and testimonials.

We know many of you will choose this package purely because it’s the cheapest, and we get it, but let’s just say you get into your study and find that you really need a lot more support…

Don’t worry because if it looks like you’re going to need substantially more than you thought, you can, at anytime, upgrade to one of the other packages.

You may even find that either our Student Support Team or your Trainer will recommend you do so when they notice how much you are needing support.

To summarise, if you tried this level but got your choice wrong, you can always change to one that suits you better and you only pay the difference in the package price. Nothing more.

For trainer 1-on-1 support which can be via a phone call, email or Google Meetings, you have the following options:

• 15 minutes – $25 (you can’t book this, it’s for email questions and responses that take less than 15 minutes or less to reply to)
• 30 minutes – $50

These are based on how much time your trainer spends focused on supporting you, no matter which way they do so – email, call or Google Meet.

Most students find 30 minutes is perfect to get all the support they need, but the email option means a more cost effective way to get support when less support is needed.

No you don’t need to pay extra for that.

If you need to speak to the trainer who marked your assessment purely to get more clarity on their feedback, or to ask questions about the feedback that was given on that assessment, there is no charge.

This rarely happens but if it does, we get you to email us what you need to know then we forward it to the trainer and make sure we can get the answers for you fast. If it’s more complicated, the trainer may suggest jumping on a call. This is still no charge.

Just be aware that if it ends up being a support call/email/meeting for anything other than the feedback and questions around that specific assessment task, you may be stopped and asked to book a trainer session.

You will have the contact details for the Student Support Team in your Learner Portal, and they are your first point of contact for all enquiries including an SOS for trainer support.

Keep in mind that we have a standard in our Fortress Learning headquarters – all emails responded to within 8 business hours and all phone calls missed are responded to within 4 business hours.

So email or call, and we will get back to you quickly if we miss you!

Contact Student Support and if they can’t answer it, they will let you know that time with a trainer is what you need, and they can help organise it.

If in doubt, if you get confused or stuck at any point – CONTACT STUDENT SUPPORT – that’s what their job is and they’re really good at customer service! They honestly just want to help you.

We have an internal policy of replying to emails in less than 8 business hours, and if we miss your call, we will get back to you in less than 4 business hours.

If you haven’t finished your course within the 12 months enrolment period, you can purchase an extension.

• 1 week $75
• 1 month $300

Here are our refund policy details so you know ahead of time what you are entitled to and how we handle refunds if in the event, you change your mind for whatever reason.

Upon Application

• If you are found not to be suitable for entry into any of our programs, we will refund all monies paid.
• If you choose not to continue with the enrolment interview or application, we will refund monies paid, excluding the $150 application fee.

After Enrolment

• Fortress has a 7-day cooling-off period.
• This 7-day cooling-off period starts from the activation of your learner portal.  For example, if your learner portal is activated on March 1st, the 7-day cooling-off period ends on March 8th
• If you choose to withdraw within the 7 days cooling-off period, then a full refund of fees paid(excluding the application fee of $150) applies.
• If you choose to withdraw at any time after the 7-day cooling-off period ends, no refund is applicable, and the full balance of course fees will be due.

Please refer to our Refund Policy here for additional information

If you’re already working in an RTO or for a training organisation that has existing training strategies, assessment tools and resources that you can use, you can choose this option.

The great thing about this pathway is that you can choose the topic and focus of the training you design to be one you can actually use in your RTO once you’re done, or even use one they already offer.

It also means that you can use your RTO’s real live resources, assessment tools and existing strategies instead of having to create them from scratch, and when you need a fully qualified Trainer and Assessor* to observe you doing a live training for your assessment task, you can have one of your colleagues do that.

(* Conditions apply for observers in regards to their held qualifications and eligibility to be a workplace observer – you can find more information about this in the list below of what you will need if you choose this pathway).

“I Work In An RTO” – Workplace Pathway

Here is the list of things you will need to organise, find and make sure your RTO has (that is up to ASQA standards), or will allow you to access, so this pathway is easy and beneficial for you:

• The National Register of VET (Training.gov.au, or its successor)
• VET sector job role information
• Information relevant to an entry-level VET teacher, trainer and assessor about:
  • Organisational requirements
  • Legislative and VET regulatory requirements, and associated guidance information.
  • Organisational procedures plus templates for designing and developing plans for vocational training based on nationally recognised products
• Nationally recognised training products
• Clients/Cohorts of learners that you can package a qualification for
• Training and assessment strategies for required training
• Session plans and learning resources that address the requirements of a training product that is nationally recognised or aligned with other recognised frameworks
• A minimum of 4 people to be learners for a face-to-face, in-person, group based training
• An additional person (can’t be one of the 4 above) to be a learner who requires 1-on-1 mentoring, doing a workplace-based training
• Students that can be assessed against at least 2 entire units of competency from a nationally recognised training package or accredited course. This must include access to assessment systems plus current and validated assessment tools, including access to a provided RPL kit
• Organisational procedures for facilitating individual and group-based vocational and work based training

If you don’t know what a lot of these are, that’s ok, you’ll just need to speak to your manager and find out if you’ll have access to everything you need. Particularly the minimum of 5 people to be learners in your practical assessments.  If not, or it just gets all too hard to find/access everything, don’t worry, we have you covered with option 2…

Out of the 2 pathways, this is the easiest!  Why?

Because our development team have spent a HUGE amount of time, energy, planning and effort to create a whole virtual RTO (called “X-Factor RTO”) for you to use. This has been over a year in the making because they have gone to great lengths to make it as close to a real-life experience as possible. Hats off to our development team here!

Everything has been created for you and is completely accessible, so you don’t have to create it, find it, or figure it out yourself (which most RTO’s expect you to do).  This is going to save you a lot of time and sanity!

We provide you with the assessment tools, all the learning resources, training and assessment strategies, and all of the VET policies and procedures you need (you can expect to come across these when you work in an actual RTO).

The assignments in our Virtual RTO are based on real life scenarios that will give you a very realistic experience of what it will be like working for an RTO as a trainer and assessor once you graduate.

And we have set up 3 workshops to make sure you’re able to complete the necessary practical assessments for the following units:

• TAEASS404 – Assess competence in an online environment.
• TAEDEL405 – Plan, organise and facilitate online learning.
• TAEASS413 – Participate in assessment validation.

Unfortunately, you can’t become a trainer without actually designing and delivering training to real people.  And you can’t become an assessor without using assessment tools and assessing real students, but as you can see, we help you do all of this.

“I Don’t Work In An RTO” – Simulated Pathway

Compared to the Actual RTO Based Workplace Pathway, here is the list of things you need to organise for this pathway (noticeably shorter?):

• A minimum of 4 people to be learners for a face-to-face, in-person, group based training
• An additional person (can’t be one of the 4 above) to be a learner who requires 1-on-1 mentoring, doing a workplace-based training

The people you choose may be family, friends and/or colleagues. You just need to record the training session and be able to upload the recording to us via your Learner Portal (you have unlimited tech support if you need help doing this part).

Note: If using family/ friends, they must be 16+ years old to be considered one of your learners.

IMPORTANT:  While we’ve done a LOT of work to make this pathway easier, make no mistake, you still have a lot of work to do because this qualification is not easy. We just haven’t made it any harder than it needs to be, and we’re one of the only RTO’s that has gone the extra mile to do this. The kicker is, you won’t even get to truly appreciate it until you’re in your own RTO and can see how our virtual RTO has really prepared you for life as a trainer and assessor!  Oh well, we know you’ll get it, once you know what we know.