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SQA News 23 January 2025

Music - Visiting Assessment

Preparations for visiting assessment for Music are well underway. 

Assessment periods 

All training meetings for Music are now complete and visiting assessors (VAs) will start to contact you to organise assessment dates.  

The assessment periods for Music are: 

National 5 and Higher: Monday 10 February – Friday 21 March 

Advanced Higher: Monday 28 April – Friday 16 May 

Organising assessment dates 

Please be as flexible as possible when agreeing visit dates with your VAs. They can be given a number of centres to visit and will also have their own centre’s visits to accommodate. We recommend having a number of possible dates available to discuss with your allocated VA. 

You should treat visiting assessment with the same importance as question paper exams. Please ensure that suitable accommodation is available and that teachers and lecturers are present to support with running these exams. Your candidates must be available for the duration of the assessment periods and must not miss the assessment due to a holiday arrangement. 

Bagpipes and pipe band drumming 

Visiting assessors for bagpipes and pipe band drumming are given a number of centres to visit. For the most efficient use of their time, they will visit centres in the same area on the same day. This may result in your candidate being assessed on bagpipes or pipe band drumming quite a bit earlier or later than their other instrument. This is equivalent to neighbouring schools having their VA visits before or after yours. Please be as accommodating as possible with the date the VA requests to visit your centre. 

Visiting assessors will call the person responsible for Music to arrange dates. Once dates are agreed, they will be confirmed to the SQA coordinator by email.  

Candidate marksheets and information for teachers and lecturers 

We dispatched candidate marksheets and a copy of the information for teachers and lecturers to all centres last week. The information for teachers and lecturers document is also available on the SQA secure site (log in required). 

Advanced Higher Music – course codes

There are two course codes for Advanced Higher Music: 

  • C850 77 – Advanced Higher Music – you must enter candidates for this course code if they are preparing for two instruments or one instrument and voice performance programmes for assessment by a visiting assessor. 

  • C878 77 – Advanced Higher Music: Portfolio – you must enter candidates for this course code if they are preparing for one instrument or voice performance programme for assessment by a visiting assessor. 

Please check that you have entered all Advanced Higher Music candidates for the correct course code. 

Centre release 

We rely on centres to provide release for visiting assessors where requested. This important aspect of candidate assessment can only be sustained by working in partnership and we hope that we can count on your support again in 2025. It is essential for the smooth running of visiting assessment that centres allow teachers and lecturers to be absent from the centre to conduct assessment for candidates throughout Scotland.  

We understand that VAs may need to reduce their centre visits or withdraw from visiting assessment duties for various reasons. Please only ask teachers and lecturers to withdraw from these duties in exceptional circumstances. When a VA withdraws we need to re-allocate their centres to another VA. This can lead to delays in arranging visit dates and an increase in the time that VAs need to be away from their own candidates. Keeping withdrawals to a minimum will help improve the experience for candidates, centres, teachers and lecturers and SQA appointees. 

Queries 

If you have any queries relating to visiting assessment, for example candidate mark sheets, or organising assessment dates please email visiting.examining@sqa.org.uk.