The SOLAR team at SQA have developed a range of formative and summative assessments for Computing (vocational) qualifications at different levels (Levels 4 – 9). The formative assessments can be accessed via OpenAssess on the SOLAR website. To gain access to the summative assessments, centres should use the link and complete the on-screen pro-forma. The full list of currently available and upcoming summative assessments can be found here, including HNC/D Computing, NPA/HNC Cyber Security and NPA Data Science. If you…

External Verifiers (EVs) are responsible for ensuring that national standards are applied across all centres in Scotland (and internationally). It’s a really interesting, part-time job, which involves EVs visiting schools, colleges and training centres. We’re currently looking for people to join the Computing team of EVs. You can find out more, and apply, here. I try to mix the team in terms of backgrounds, specialisms, gender, etc. I’d welcome applications from anyone but particularly people with experience of schools, training…

Qualifications are formally reviewed every few years but, between reviews, we maintain qualifications by making small changes. The types of maintenance we carry out includes: adding units to qualifications revising/updating units writing new units and adding these to existing qualifications revising assessments creating new assessments. For example, in 2017 we devised a new unit in artificial intelligence that we added to HND Computer Science. A couple of years ago, we changed the way that we deal with proposed changes to…