Assessment Arrangements update
We recently undertook extensive research into our assessment arrangements service. We are very grateful to the staff from schools, colleges, training providers and local authorities along with learners and their parents and carers, who gave us their views.
Engaging with and listening to the views of those we serve is a key pledge in our Prospectus for Change, an ambitious blueprint for Scotland's new qualifications body.
This was the first research exclusively looking at assessment arrangements in Scotland for SQA National Courses and has allowed us to better understand how assessment arrangements work in practice.
The outcomes from the research support the continuous improvement of our assessment arrangements service and the quality assurance of the systems used by schools, colleges and training providers. The outcomes have also helped us to identify opportunities for improvement.
As a result of what we heard, we have:
- shared the findings with key external stakeholders
- collaborated with the EIS in the development of a set of frequently asked questions on the assessment arrangements service, which have been published and shared with their members
- reviewed SQA guidance and reduced potential misinterpretation of the guidance, and shared this with schools, colleges and training providers
- identified opportunities to improve how we communicate with schools, colleges, training providers, learners, parents and carers about assessment arrangements.
The research outcomes also inform the review of our approach to the quality assurance of assessment arrangements and what improvements we can make, our review of the suitability of the terminology we use and the improvements we are considering could be made to the assessment arrangements request (AAR) system by Qualifications Scotland.
Read our Prospectus for Change