National Qualifications Verification Greg Murray St Mary’s Music School

Verification What is being verified? Preparing for Verification – Internal Verification Helpful Hints Final Thoughts.

What is being verified? At some point in the first two years your centre will be verified. You will be asked to provide evidence to show how you are assessing candidates against the standard from N3-N5.

What is being verified? The centre is being assessed to ensure that they are maintaining and assessing against the national standard – Candidates do not have to completed the unit – Candidates do not have to have met the standard for the outcomes for the unit being assessed

Preparing to be verified So what happens if you get selected?

Preparing to be verified You should provide SQA with a sample of 12 candidates (4 from each level if possible, or balanced if not) The SQA will not specify which pupils are to be verified as they do currently – They would like to see; a clear pass, clear fail, borderline pass, and a borderline fail if possible. Similarly, the centre can choose what units and outcomes are to be verified

Preparing to be verified The materials to be externally verified do not need to come from a standardised test, completed under examination conditions. – If anything Unit Assessment should be considered as an ongoing part of your teaching and learning It is worthwhile looking beyond the Unit-by-unit assessment support packs, and look at the combined or portfolio approaches.

What needs to be included: 1.Evidence of centre’s internal quality assurance processes 2.Verification sample form (provided) 3.Centre’s candidate assessment record 4.The assessment used (with relevant marking scheme) 5.The candidates evidence (with clear references to where standard was met)

Internal Verification What are you doing to ensure quality?

Internal Verification Is the most important part of the verification process. Within your centre it is very important that there is a robust quality assurance system. This should be undertaken by someone who is not assessing the same group of candidates for the same subject. – Obviously this may cause problems for smaller centres, or team-teaching. Look towards local networks or neighbourhood groups to aid process.

Internal Verification As part of this process you should ensure that – All unit assessment materials/questions are checked against the outcomes – A sample of marked work is checked against the standard – That there is a review of assessments and procedures for possible improvement for next time. This should be as part of a discussion to ensure everyone understands the standard. It is not meant to be an absolute or definitive process.

Helpful Hints Hopefully…

Helpful Hints You should have separate assessments for each level. You should consider if your assessment is suitable for all of your candidates Unit assessment packs only exemplify an approach – SQA does not need to approve every assessment. – Only if: Big departure from given assessments Unsure if this is suitable (although this should be part of the verification process)

Helpful Hints “Open-book” assessments are permitted Answers given by candidates can be double- counted so that they can be assessed for different outcomes in the same paper – If assessing Scottish outcome 1.1, they could also be assessed for outcome 2.1 or 2.2 at the same time. Outcome 1s for each Unit do not need to be assessed using that course content.

Final Thoughts