Things are a little quieter in SQA over the summer months, at least for those people not directly involved in the examination diet. But there is plenty going on in the vocational area. We are currently working on a number of tasks including the HN Review, which is developing five new HN qualifications, a review of Internet Safety, which is a popular National Unit, updating Modern Apprenticeships in the IT Practitioner/Professional area, customising awards for markets outside of Scotland, writing…
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Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) are becoming an important part of the UK training landscape. There are currently three IT-related MAs offered in Scotland. There is one MA in the IT User area, at Level 3 (SCQF 6), and two in the IT Professional area, at Levels 2 and 3 (SCQF Levels 5 and 6). An important part of any MA is the “educational” component, which is normally an appropriate SVQ. For example, the IT User programme includes SQA’s SVQ IT User…
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The team met this afternoon to look over the results of the recent survey we carried out to find out your satisfaction with the service we provide. As previously noted, the results were re-assuringly positive, with very low rates of dissatisfaction (5%), but there are areas that we need to work on to improve the service. Some of the weaker areas, such as SOLAR and the SQA website, are not the responsibility of my team, but others are, and we…
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I closed the satisfaction survey this afternoon. It’s been running for the last month so, I think, people have had enough time to respond. There were 55 responses in total, which is not bad, but not quite as many as I had hoped for. Most of the respondents (almost three quarters) were from the college sector, which was expected. I don’t plan to share the results since the information will be used internally to improve the service that we provide.…
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Yesterday afternoon, I posted something on the HN Review blog about an event organised by Scotland’s Colleges. Every year, Scotland’s Colleges organises a Network event to bring together practitioners from all over Scotland. I posted my comments on the HN blog because my own contribution to the day was about the on-going HN Review. But a number of SQA developments featured during the event, including the new NC in Computer Games Development and the NPA in Mobile Technology. It was…
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In September 2006 we launched what was probably the world’s first Internet Safety qualification, consisting of a single Unit at Intermediate 1 (SCQF Level 4). This qualification was aimed mainly at secondary school and college students and has seen a substantial uptake from these groups. However, there have been significant changes in Internet use since 2006, particularly the increased use of Social Networking and the associated dangers. A minor revision of the qualification was undertaken in late 2010, prior to…
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I updated the HN Review blog this morning with the latest information about that development. The review of HNC/D Computing and HNC/D Networking is a major project for the team – so major that it has its own blog. I’m sure that anyone with an interest in the associated qualifications will already follow that blog but, for those who don’t, this might be a good time to provide an update. Consultation is a key part of any HN development and…
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Over the Summer period I will be putting forward any changes to unit specifications that have been agreed by the QDT as well as updates to the framework sections in the Arrangement documents for all HNC/D awards. All changes/updates will be implemented and ready for the start of the new session. Any changes relating to HN Units/Awards are tracked and listed on the SQA website here
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I attended the AGM of the Scottish Institute of Computing Educationalists at the University of Dundee today. I was invited to speak about vocational qualifications in Computing. The audience was largely made up of Computing teachers from the school sector, who traditionally delivered “academic” qualifications such as Higher Level in Computing. My colleague, Derek Middleton, gave an update on the Curriculum for Excellence, specifically the new awards being proposed at Levels 4, 5 and 6. My own presentation followed one…
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A few months ago, I mentioned that I planned to get feedback from you about the quality of service that the (vocational) SQA Computing team provided. At long last, I have got around to creating a short questionnaire about this. It will only takes five minutes to complete, and the results will help us to improve the service. The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SQAComputing I won’t be sharing the results with you, since we will use it internally to…
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