Today Pamela McConnell from the SQA spoke to PTCs about the resources available online from the SQA regarding understanding standards and internal verification procedures. Pamela was a very engaging presenter and took us all through a wide range of services available from the SQA and approaches to verification and moderation.

The understanding standards materials are available on the SQA open site and provide evidence and commentaries on assessment judgements for exam scripts and assignments. All materials online currently are from National 5 courses and Higher will come online as materials are made available over the summer. The website for this is SQA Understanding Standards, and should be of great use over the coming months. She also raised awareness of the forthcoming Understanding Standards events that will be held specifically for Higher during the autumn so look out for updates about how to book on to these events.

Pamela also wished to raise awareness of the verification and course reports to allow staff to gain up to date information on current issues and strengths in their subject areas. These are available on the SQA page and allow all staff to identify consistent messages coming out of the SQA subject teams. There were also numerous NQ changes notified in May 2015 and there will be many new UASPs coming on stream in August 2015 so staff should be vigilant for any updated materials for units they are delivering.

Finally, she delivered a short presentation on approaches to internal verification and the need to have rigorous systems in place to ensure consistency and high standards, which I am sure we can reflect positively on in Inveralmond. Pamela talked through different ways to undertake internal verification from the common ‘Team Peer Review’ approach where staff pass their marking to a colleague to cross mark and provide feedback to the more formal Lead IV approach where a member of staff will chair discussion around a table with a group of colleagues, agree marking principles beforehand and then commence marking (similar to the SQA model for marking of exams).

Stephen Small