SQA News 3 April 2025

We’ve published the updated National 5 Practical Cake Craft course specification and coursework assessment task for session 2025-26 onwards. These documents reflect the changes to the course assessment from session 2025-26 onwards, following  our recent announcement that we’re removing the question paper. 

 

With the question paper removed for session 2025-26 onwards, we’ve added a new ‘demonstrating knowledge and understanding’ section to the assignment, which is worth 8 marks. This section will assess learners on their knowledge and understanding of theory, based on the processes and techniques they’ve used to produce and finish their cake in the practical activity.

 

The assignment will continue to be worth 30 marks. We’ve reviewed and updated the marking instructions, and the distribution of marks across the combined assignment and practical activity. It will now have four stages:

 

• Stage 1: designing (assignment, section 1) – 17 marks

• Stage 2: implementing (practical activity) – 70 marks

• Stage 3: demonstrating knowledge and understanding (assignment, section 2) – 8 marks

• Stage 4: evaluating (assignment, section 3) – 5 marks

 

Stages 3 and 4 will be closed book, and learners must complete them at the same time, under direct supervision. Learners will have a maximum of 1 hour to complete both stages.

 

We’ve updated the candidate workbooks and split them into ‘stages 1 and 2’ and ‘stages 3 and 4’, to reflect that stages 3 and 4 are closed book. The workbooks are available in Word, PDF and Google Docs formats. You need to send both workbooks together when submitting them to us for marking. 

 

We’ve also published a new assignment submission instructions document, which provides a checklist for submitting learners’ completed workbooks. 

 

Stage 1 – designing (assignment section 1)

You need to attach the design illustration and recipe to the candidate workbook for stages 1 and 2, as it no longer contains pages for this. Please ensure the learner's Scottish Candidate Number (SCN) is clearly visible on each document.

 

The plan of work section of the candidate workbook now contains distinct headings for learners to write up their plan of work.

 

Stage 2 – implementing (practical activity)

Before marking the practical activity, please familiarise yourself with the updated marking instructions and ensure you’re comfortable with the application of marks. 

 

Stage 3 - demonstrating knowledge and understanding (assignment section 2) 

Learners must complete stages 3 and 4 at the same time, under closed book conditions, after completing stages 1 and 2. 

 

Please make sure learners are familiar with the questions and that they relate their answers to their own cake that they produced in stage 2.

 

Stage 4 – evaluating (assignment section 3)

Please make sure learners know what they need to evaluate, and that they link it specifically to their own cake. 

 

You can access the updated documents for session 2025-26 onwards from the ‘course specification’ and ‘coursework’ tabs on the National 5 Practical Cake Craft web page. The updated documents are dated March 2025. They’re available alongside the current documents for session 2024-25. 

 

The current course specification, coursework assessment task and candidate workbooks will remain available on our website until after this year’s appeals service closes.  

 

We’ll issue a new course code for National 5 Practical Cake Craft in May. You’ll need the new code to enter learners for the course from session 2025-26 onwards. 

 

We’re updating the course code because we’re making a significant change to the course assessment by removing the question paper. The change in codes will differentiate between the current and revised course assessment structures.

 

We’ll provide Understanding Standards support to help you prepare for the changes to assessment in these courses. We’ll confirm details of this support in due course.