Quality Assurance

SQA's quality assurance processes have been developed to ensure that national standards are applied to internally-assessed Units or Course components. To achieve this, assessments set by a centre should be:

• rigorous and fair so that candidates can show they have achieved the required standard
• accurately and consistently applied across all candidates and all levels

Verification is the procedure we use to make sure that centres' assessment decisions are valid and reliable and are in line with national standards.

Systems Verification is the process of ensuring that centres have adequate internal quality assurance systems, and that these are sufficiently well-documented.

After approval, your centre is assigned to one of our Customer Support Managers (CSM) on a geographical basis and your CSM may contact you to arrange quality assurance visits.

If you need help, your Customer Support Manager will be pleased to assist you. Contact details can be found on our website or from the Customer Contact Centre (tel: 0845 279 1000).

Centres are responsible for the internal verification of their assessments. This means that centres should have an internal verification system - a system of having quality checks in place - which can be operated throughout the centre. Each member of staff who is responsible for the assessment of candidates and/or internal verification of candidate material should:

• be made aware of your centre's quality assurance procedures
• comply with these procedures

To ensure national consistency in assessment decisions, SQA appoints experienced teachers/lecturers who have good, recent experience in the delivery and assessment of their subject to carry out external verification in centres. SQA will notify you (the SQA Co-ordinator) if your centre has been selected for verification.

National Qualifications

Verification, which can be visiting, central or retrospective, is carried out on:

• Units which are part of an National Course
• stand-alone Units
• Course components where the mark awarded contributes to the final Course mark

Selection for external verification depends on criteria which are set out in the Guide to Assessment and Quality Assurance. The main verification events for National Qualifications take place between the beginning of February and the end of May, depending on whether the mode of verification is visiting or central.
 
Visiting verification

Centres are advised subject-by-subject if they have been selected for visiting verification. The Verifier who has been assigned to your centre will contact you (the SQA Co-ordinator), and ask you to liaise with the appropriate subject staff in setting a date for the visit.

In your centre's notification of the visiting verification event there will be details of the Unit/Course to be verified and a list of candidates. He/she will advise you of the candidate material to be made ready for the visit. You will be given several weeks notice of visiting verification.

This type of verification can be carried out at any time of the year, and Verifiers may ask to look at completed candidate evidence or at work in progress (interim evidence).

Central verification

By the end of February, your centre will receive Central Verification Selection Reports which will detail the subjects/Units for which you have been selected. They are identified as follows:

The package you receive will also include the appropriate stationery, envelopes and labels to enable you to prepare the material for uplift by our couriers.

Units with a completion date of April, May, June or July can be selected for retrospective verification. This type of verification is normally done centrally, except in subjects where the evidence is unsuitable for posting.  Centres should be aware that they may be selected, and should retain candidate evidence for at least three weeks after the completion date submitted to SQA.

Higher National qualifications

Higher National (HN) qualifications are verified by the Unit. The Verifier will normally ask to see work in progress (incomplete evidence).

Centres running HNC/HNDs written to the revised design principles, should refer to the Operational Help Centre.

Centres may wish to use SQA's Assessment Exemplars for assessing candidates. These are available on the secure section of SQA's website and have been fully prior verified. However, if you prefer to produce your own instruments of assessment for HN Units, SQA recommends that these assessment materials are forwarded to the Verification team for Prior Verification before the candidates take the assessments. 

Centres selected for verification of the Graded Units will be given at least four weeks notice and will receive full instructions for the preparation of the material for either visiting or central verification.

Scottish Vocational Qualifications

Every centre running SVQs will have at least ONE visit per year. Some vocational qualification assessment strategies require that more than one visit is made each year.

You will be contacted by the External Verifier to agree a mutually convenient date for the visit. As candidates come into an SVQ programme at different times in the year, the External Verifier will check with you whether you have current candidates and when they started on the programme. This information usually determines if and when a visit will take place.

Assessment Arrangements

All candidates should have equal opportunities to show that they can achieve the standard required for our qualifications. Assessment Arrangements are intended for candidates who can achieve the national standards, but cannot do so by the published assessment procedures.

Candidates with disabilities and/or additional support needs, or with a temporary disability at the time of the assessment, may be eligible for assessment arrangements.

Requests for assessment arrangements should be made to SQA for all external assessments and internal assessments, where appropriate, when a need has been identified.