The Qualification Leaders (QLs) met on Saturday in the SQA offices in Glasgow, for a progress meeting. As you know, the QLs have been busy working on the validation conditions and recommendations since January.
We're getting pretty close to finalising the required changes. Most of the conditions and recommendations have been actioned. The main challenge remains core skills. The validation panel wants more core skills to be embedded in the awards, and adding Numeracy (at Level 6) is proving to be a challenge. But we're working on it and hope to come up with something soon.
I hope to have the awards validated by the end of this month so that we can publish the Group Award Specifications in April.
But there is plenty that you can do now to prepare for next year. The Group Award Specifications will not change much, if at all, and can be used as the basis of your timetabling. In fact, the HNC award was validated a long time ago, and will not change. Most of the units (in all of the awards) are available, and there are assessment exemplars for many of the units (available now via SQA Secure). There is also some teaching and learning material available.
There will be a formal launch event in June but there's plenty available now to begin your preparations.
Contact Caroline if you want to know more about the new awards or the support materials available.
