The EASA grading scale: How Many, How Often, TEM and the VENN model
Once you know what CBTA is, the next question is how a competency actually gets a number. Under the EASA framework each competency is graded on a 1–5 scale, where 3 is the expected standard. The grade isn't a gut feeling: it comes from three separate dimensions that the evaluator considers together. This combination is often drawn as overlapping circles — the VENN model — described in the EASA AMC & GM to ORO.FC.231.
The three dimensions
HOW MANY — how many of the competency's observable behaviours (OBs) were demonstrated. A pilot who shows almost all of the relevant behaviours scores higher on this dimension than one who shows only a few. Because OBs are concrete and visible, this keeps the assessment grounded in evidence rather than impression.
HOW OFTEN — how consistently the crew member performed to the required standard: rarely, occasionally, regularly, very often, or always. A behaviour shown once is not the same as one shown reliably throughout the session.
TEM (the outcome) — the result in terms of Threat and Error Management, on a five-step scale from an unsafe situation, through not an unsafe situation, safe, safe and effective, up to actively enhancing safety. TEM captures what the performance actually produced for the safety of the operation.
Putting them together
The three dimensions are combined into a single 1–5 grade for the competency. A practical way to apply the word picture is to let the weakest dimension cap the grade — in other words, the competency grade is the minimum of How Many, How Often and TEM. The logic is intuitive: it doesn't matter how many good behaviours you saw if the outcome was an unsafe situation, and a single brilliant action shown only once does not make a consistent competency. This is the approach AviGrade uses to produce a grade in real time.
The 1–5 scale reads, broadly:
- 5 — Enhance safety: goes beyond the standard.
- 4 — Safe and effective: above the required standard.
- 3 — Safe: meets the required standard (the norm).
- 2 — Not an unsafe situation: below standard; development needed.
- 1 — Unsafe situation: does not meet the standard.
A worked example
Take Communication (COM) during a busy approach. The pilot demonstrates most of the observable behaviours (HOW MANY is high), does so consistently across the phase (HOW OFTEN is high), and the result is a safe and effective operation with no unmanaged threat (TEM = "safe and effective"). The weakest of the three is still strong, so the competency would be graded a 4.
Now imagine the same pilot shows plenty of good communication behaviours, but on one occasion a missed read-back briefly creates an unsafe situation that the crew then recovers. Even with many behaviours demonstrated, the TEM outcome pulls the grade down — because the weakest dimension governs the result.
Why this matters for examiners
Grading three dimensions per competency, for up to nine competencies, for two crew members, by hand on paper is slow and error-prone. Structuring it — marking OBs, selecting How Often and the TEM outcome, and letting the grade fall out automatically — keeps evaluations consistent between examiners and frees you to focus on the debrief.
AviGrade calculates the competency grade from How Many, How Often and TEM as you mark each observable behaviour — no spreadsheets.
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