Drama - visiting assessment
Preparations for visiting assessment for Drama are well underway.
Assessment periods
All training meetings for Drama are now complete and visiting assessors (VAs) will start to contact you to organise assessment dates.
The assessment period for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher Drama is Monday 10 February to Friday 25 April.
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 they’ll also have their own centre’s visits to accommodate. We recommend that you have a number of dates available to discuss with your allocated VA.
You should treat visiting assessment with the same importance as question paper-based exams. Please ensure that suitable accommodation is available. A quiet space must be made available to the VA for reading and marking the National 5 and Higher preparation for performance (and the reading of scripts at any level, if needed).
Please ensure that teachers and lecturers are available to support with running these exams. For National 5 Drama, the designated centre assessor must be free for the full day to participate in collaborative marking with the VA.
Your candidates must be available for the duration of the assessment periods and must not miss the assessment due to a holiday arrangement. On the day of your VA visit, all candidates being assessed should be available for the full day.
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 on Monday 3 February.
Please ensure that you have all documents listed in the information for teachers and lecturers available for the VA’s arrival.
For National 5 Drama, please ensure that completed preparation for performance responses have been preliminary marked by the designated centre assessor before the VA visit.
Centre release
We rely on centres to provide release for VAs 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's essential for the smooth running of visiting assessment that centres allow teachers and lecturers to be absent from their centre to conduct assessment for candidates throughout Scotland.
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 about visiting assessment (for example, candidate mark sheets, organising assessment dates, and so on), please email visiting.examining@sqa.org.uk.