Welcome back
Welcome back for session 2026/27. I hope you had a good summer holiday. I’d like to remind you about the support we offer to teachers of vocational Computing qualifications.
It can be confusing to remember who does what within Qualifications Scotland so I posted something about this at the start of the year.
My team (me, Emma and Helen) are responsible for vocational Computing qualifications. We can be contacted at:
bobby.elliott@qualifications.gov.scot
emma.campos@qualifications.gov.scot
helen.zhang@qualifications.gov.scot.
Emma is the lead officer for SVQs, computer science and computer games (including esports); Helen is the lead officer for data science, cyber security and IT (networking, etc.). If you’re not sure who to contact, you can send a message to computing@qualifications.gov.scot. If you have a quick question, we can be contacted in Chat on Teams (using these email addresses).
We recently set-up two new Microsoft Teams for educators.
The Computing Support Network is for everyone who teaches a vocational Computing qualification. There are dedicated communities (channels) within this team for some specific qualifications such as NPA Cyber Security and NPA Data Science.
The second new team is for Next Gen Higher National Qualifications.
Next Gen qualifications “open up” this session — which means that any Scottish college can offer these qualifications. So we thought it worthwhile to provide dedicated support for these new awards. We’ve developed a number of Next Gen HNQs over the last six years:
HNC Computing
HND Computer Science
HND Data Science
HNC Esports
HND Networking & Cloud Infrastructure
HND Software Development.
If you deliver (or are thinking of delivering) any of these qualifications, I would encourage you to join the new team, where you will get support from us and from fellow practitioners. Regular readers will know that we’re currently adding to this list by developing HND Esports and HNC Computer Games Development.
Finally, we’re always looking for people to contribute to Scottish education by working with us.
