Meet the Team

The Team comprises of a core of full time staff, together with a wider group of expert staff seconded from other SQA teams and externally.

Full-time team members

        Amanda Gray, Carolyn Marshall, Karen Watson, Gill MacFarlane 
Lena Gray, Margaret Tierney, John Allan  

Members of the wider team

Rob van Krieken, Honor Murphy, Christine Wood, James McVittie

Full-time team members

• Lena Gray
• Karen Watson
• John Allan
• Gill Macfarlane
• Margaret Tierney
• Amanda Gray
• Rob van Krieken
• Carolyn Marshall
• Chris Sutherland

Members of the Wider Team

• James McVittie
• Honor Murphy
• Christine Wood

The full-time team

Lena Gray, Business Manager

Lena is the Business Manager for Qualifications for the Future Team. Her responsibilities include:

• Overall leadership and management of all strands of work for the team
• Leading on management of the project research activities and other tasks required for SQA’s contribution to the Curriculum for Excellence programme
• Leading on management of the project and engagement activities required for the Qualifications for the Future programme
• Leading on strategies for communication and engagement about the work of the team
• To maintain links between the various strands of work, between the work of the team and the organisation, and with external stakeholders.

John Allan, Project Manager

John is the Project Manager for Curriculum for Excellence. His responsibilities include:

• Project management of all Curriculum for Excellence activities;
• Liaison with SQA operational colleagues and scoping of operational implications of any change;
• Management of internal and external communication activities;
• Carrying out research, collation of research results and drafting of reports as required;
• Project administration.

Margaret Tierney, Project Manager

Margaret is the Project Manager for Core Skills. Her responsibilities include:

• Project Management of all Core Skills Activities
• Responsible for the maintenance and support of NQ and workplace Core Skills Units and assessments
• Responsibility for PDA in Introduction to Tutoring in Adult Literacies Learning; developing PDA in Workplace Literacies
• Liaison with Learning Connections to promote development of Core Skills and Introduction to Tutoring Adult Literacies (ITALL) in the community and outreach based settings
• Collaboration with colleagues in similar areas of Key/Basic/Essential Skills in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and advising on equivalences to Core Skills for these qualifications
• Providing guidance on embedding Core Skills into NQ/HN units and responsibility for coordinating claims through the auditing and validation process.

Chris Sutherland, Project Manager

Chris is the Project Manager charged with developing activities and approaches to meet the needs of young people requiring More Choices, More Chances His responsibilities include:

• Desk and other research on the needs of those young people in need of More Choices, More Chances
• Liaison with partners in other organisations
• Competitor analysis
• Development of new qualifications and/or qualifications surround for existing qualifications, working with relevant Qualifications Managers
• Provision of support for qualifications, including materials, visits and networks

Rob van Krieken, Project Manager

Rob is a Project Manager for Qualifications for the Future. His responsibilities include:

• Investigating and evaluating qualification design issues
• Investigating and evaluating assessment and grading issues
• Carrying out research, collation of research and drafting of reports as required
• Comparing and benchmark existing and intended standards against those in other countries
• Contributing to the development of Government policy on qualifications as required

Karen Watson, Project Officer

Karen is a Project Officer for Curriculum for Excellence. Her responsibilities include:

• Project coordination and reporting
• Monitoring budgets and finance
• Providing research services to managers and consultants
• Co-ordination of engagement activities with internal and external stakeholders
• Collating research results
• Line management of Administration officers
• Managing the administration of internal and external events for the Team; Creative Workshops, Group Activities, Team Meetings

Amanda Gray and Gill Macfarlane, Project Officers

Amanda and Gill are Project Officers for Core Skills. Their responsibilities include:

• Responsible for the maintenance and support of NQ and workplace Core Skills Units and assessments
• Responsibility for PDA in Introduction to Tutoring in Adult Literacies Learning; developing PDA in Workplace Literacies
• Liaison with Learning Connections to promote development of Core Skills/ESOL and Introduction to Tutoring in Adult Literacies Learning (ITALL) in the community and outreach based settings
• Collaboration with colleagues in similar areas of Key/Basic/Essential Skills within England, Wales and Northern Ireland and advising on equivalences to Core Skills for these qualifications
• Providing guidance on embedding of Core Skills into NQ/HN units and responsibility for coordinating claims through the auditing and validation process

Administrator - Carolyn Marshall

Carolyn's responsibilities include:

• Co-ordinating support for tracking projects and workstreams
• Financial record keeping and monitoring
• Co-ordinating information exchanges between Qualifications Managers, Qualifications Business Managers and the Qualifications for the Future Team and with other parts of the organisation
• Supervising Grade 3 administrators in the Team
• Providing additional support to the Business Manager and Project Team as required

The wider team

James McVittie, Senior Consultant

James is a Fellow of SQA. Currently he is a consultant working on Curriculum for Excellence activities. His responsibilities include:

• Engagement and communication with external stakeholders in the secondary school sector
• Carrying out research, collation of research results and drafting of reports as required

Honor Murphy, Project Manager

Honor is a Project Manager for Research and Information Services and is seconded to the Qualifications for the Future on a part-time basis. Her responsibilities include:

• Providing research on assessment and quality assurance issues with particular emphasis on ways in which local responsibility for assessment and quality assurance can be increased. This involves the investigation and evaluation of systems in the SQA, the rest of the UK and also international models.

Christine Wood, Project Manager

Christine is a Project Manager for Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) and is seconded to the Qualifications for the Future team on a part-time basis. Her responsibilities include:

• Providing advice, guidance and exemplars on CAA and the use of ICT in the assessment and quality assurance of SQA qualifications
• Undertaking environmental scanning to identify innovative approaches and systems which could contribute to SQA’s implementation of qualifications and assessment to support Curriculum for Excellence

 

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