Welcome back

The team would like to welcome back teachers and lecturers to a new term. The team has had a busy summer. The HN Review commenced at the end of June, HNC Cyber Security was validated in early July and made it available to centres later than month, we commenced the development of new qualifications in data science, started work on HND Cyber Security, published the support materials for cyber security, and announced important changes to the portfolio of qualifications.

Two things are particularly worth noting. The HN Review is a major development, which embraces a number of popular Higher National Qualifications, and will keep the team busy over the next 18 months. We recently appointed educationalists to “scope” the changes so we’ve made a start but there is a great deal of work ahead of us. The changes to the portfolio are important since we’re separating “digital qualifications” from computer science/IT awards. This means that two different teams will now develop and maintain qualifications in each area . It will give my team more time to focus on computer science. Check the original post for details.

Finally, we lost Claudia who left to start teacher training. She was providing support for a number of qualifications and leading on the data science development so she will be missed. We’re hoping to replace Claudia in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, use computing@sqa.org.uk if you have any queries and either Emma or myself will deal with them.

It’s a great time to be involved with computing with exciting developments in AI, machine learning and data science – and a renewed focus on core computing skills such as programming. We hope that you have a good year. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, if you don’t already.

Bobby Published 14/08/2018