August 30, 2016 - Bobby -
Further to the recent post about re-organising online groups, I’ve now set up two new groups — one for school teachers and one for college lecturers. You can join the school group here and join the college group here. We decided at the recent team meeting that organising the groups around centre type made more sense (and was more manageable) than organising them around specific qualifications since it meant a much bigger group of people to provide peer support. It…
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August 29, 2016 - Bobby -
As many of you know, the team has been using online groups, to support centres, for many years. During the recent team meeting, we discussed our use of these groups and decided to rationalise them. We decided to create three new groups: one for schools one for colleges and one for training centres. We presently have an inconsistent approach to the groups — some subjects (such as Cyber Security) have a dedicated group, some subjects share a group, and some subjects…
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August 19, 2016 - sqablogs -
As some of you are already aware, the revised NPA in PC Passport was validated in April, and is now available to centres. You can find all relevant information for this qualification on a subject page on our website and in the FAQ. The FAQ contains useful links to the Group Award Specification and unit specifications. This qualification is supported with the Assessment Support Packs (ASPs). The following packs have been developed and are available on SQA Secure website: SCQF level 4:…
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August 16, 2016 - Bobby -
We get a lot of queries around this time of year about what units have changed over the last 12 months. We appreciate why you ask — it’s vital that you teach the right thing. Our advice is simple: download the latest version of every unit that you’re about to teach. You can download unit specifications on the SQA website — here for non-advanced and here for advanced. Simply search for each unit that you’re teaching and download the resulting PDF. That’s the…
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August 4, 2016 - sqablogs -
We are organising a SVQ/CBQ Quality Networking Event on Wednesday, 7 September. The event is aimed at centres delivering our Computing SVQ/CBQ qualifications, including: SVQ IT User SVQ IT Professional Diploma in Digital Application Support Diploma in Information Security Professionals Diploma in IT & Telecommunications Professionals. The speakers will include representatives of Skills Development Scotland, Tech Partnership and, of course, SQA. More information on the event, as well as the instructions on how to book your place, is now available…
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Forget the previous post. I misunderstood the proposed changes to Groupspaces – so we can continue as normal. The reason that I don’t just delete the original post is that the misunderstanding prompted me and my team to discuss the current groups, which was a useful discussion. So we plan to make some of the changes. The special purposes groups (Sector Panel, Qualification Support Team, etc.) will not change but we plan to roll-up the subject groups into more generic…
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I received notification, a few days ago, that GroupSpaces was changing its pricing model, and phasing out its free service. My team met today to discuss what (and how) to migrate to a new service. We’re planning to use Yahoo Groups. So, we will create new groups on that service. But we’re taking the opportunity to review and rationalise the groups. For example, we will create one group for school teachers and one group for college lecturers, rather than lots…
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One of the things to come out of the recent team day was a feedback form for people who work with us. We wanted to formalise the feedback that we get from teachers and lecturers (and others) when they work as unit writers or assessment writers or any number of roles. Up until now, the feedback has been informal. The intention is to formalise the feedback so that we can improve the support that we give to “consultants” when they…
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The Maths team, in SQA, recently reviewed a number of Maths units within group awards, such as HNC Computing, to check that their levels and contents are right. The outcome is that a number of units are going to be revised. Some of those units are within Computing qualifications. The SCQF Level of the units won’t change but their contents will. Most will be “levelled up” to ensure the maths is pitched at the correct level. I will convene a…
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I attended a meeting on Friday, in London, about the new Computing curriculum in England, which was introduced in September 2014 to replace the previous ICT curriculum. It’s an ambitious curriculum that aims to deliver computer science at all stages of compulsory education (Key Stages 1-4). The main change is the move away from ICT to computer science, with a focus on algorithms, data structures and coding. This is in keeping with many other countries (such as the US, China…
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