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Qualifications Development

The new National Qualifications will play a key role in helping to deliver the values, purposes and principles of Curriculum for Excellence. They will help raise standards of achievement, improve learning experiences, and develop skills for learning, life and work.

Teacher with pupils.

The assessment will promote breadth and depth of understanding. It will motivate and challenge learners, and ensure that they can move smoothly from a broad, general education into learning that leads to qualifications and employment.

As with any new qualification, we are ensuring that our partners and the teaching profession are fully involved in the qualifications design teams, working groups and review groups that will help develop the new qualifications and review the existing qualifications. You can find out more about each of our groups by clicking the sections to the left.

Here we will explain our development model, engagement model and implementation timelines.

Development Model

The nature, scope and timelines for developing these new qualifications requires a new approach. In meeting this challenge, the model we use is underpinned by the following principles:

an open, transparent process with multiple opportunities for stakeholder input and ideas
rather than building qualifications from Units up, the development will start with learning and skills development across curriculum areas
the roles of providing subject expertise and the tasks of developing qualifications and writing arrangements and specifications will be separated out, ensuring a streamlined model and best use of available expertise
firm parameters for the design and assessment of individual subject developments, to ensure a reasonable consistency of approach whilst recognising subject differences
quality assurance of the new qualifications will be an integral part of the development and will permeate all stages of the process

Engagement Model

Positive engagement with all our stakeholders is a critical factor in ensuring the success of the qualification development and implementation. We are working collaboratively with you to help promote an early understanding of the requirements of individual courses well in advance of formal publication of qualifications arrangements and specifications. Our engagement model:

is open and transparent
is proactive – planned, coordinated and targeted to the right people, at the right time by the right method and level of detail
involves a wide range of groups and individuals, including informal quality assurance groups
helps shape our thinking, explore issues and test proposals by collecting intelligence of views and perceptions and provide two-way feedback and liaison
describes, explains and promotes the work of the development process

Engagement Channels - how you can be involved

You have the opportunity to engage with SQA both through our formally established Groups - Curriculum Area Review Groups (CARGs), Qualifications Design Teams (QDTs), and Subject Working Groups (SWGs) and our more targeted meetings with organisations and individuals. Some examples of how we are engaging with you are:

We are undertaking targeted engagement on wider, cross curricular and specific issues - with relevant stakeholders (including learners) - such as equity and access, enterprise, sustainability and citizenship.
Curriculum for Excellence webpages - our CfE webpages are kept updated with the latest news and developments. We have an online facility for you to feed back and comment upon draft qualification specifications etc.
Connecting with SQA e-zine - to find out about all the latest news and developments about our Curriculum for Excellence work, register for our free monthly e-zine.

Proposed Implementation Timelines

Here is the proposed timetable for introducing the new National Qualifications:

2009/10 and 2010/11 - new curriculum introduced
2012 - publication of new qualifications at levels 4 & 5 (National 4 & National 5) and revised qualifications at levels 1-3 and 6 (Access and Higher)
2012/2013 - last Standard Grades and publication of revised qualifications level 7 (Advanced Higher)
2013/2014 - first new and revised qualifications at levels 1 to 5 (Access and National 4 and 5); 'dual run' with existing National Courses for Access, Intermediates
2014/2015 - first revised qualifications at level 6 (Higher); 'dual run' with existing National Courses for Access, Intermediates and Highers
2015/2016 - first revised qualifications at level 7 (Advanced Higher)

We are working to implement the new qualifications without any risk to young people's education. The current National Qualifications at Access, Intermediate 1 and 2, Higher and Advanced Higher will still be available in 2013-14 and 2014-15 to our learners who have followed the current curriculum. We will work closely with centres to ensure that all candidate information and entries are appropriate to the qualification being undertaken.