SQA have just published The Design Principles for the National Literacy and Numeracy qualifications.
Here are a few things that stood out for me after a first reading:
To get a 4 you need to get a 4 in every assessable component. If you get one 3 then you get a 3 overall.
Information Handling is going to be internally assessed. Goodness knows what form that assessment will take!
The portfolio used to assess the other elements will “be drawn from across the curriculum or from more than one context” (emphasis added). It could therefore consist entirely of work produced in the maths department.
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Hey Robert,
Interesting to hear your thoughts on this.
As far as I understand, all aspects of the qualifications are intended to be based on evidence of learning gathered from classroom activities. For number processes and money, time and measurement this evidence will be sent to SQA for assessment. Evidence for information handling will be assessed by centres. In the long term, the intention is that evidence for all three components will be assessed internally.
The intention is certainly that the evidence will be from a variety of curricular areas. These qualifications are not solely intended for use in schools and I think by “from more than one context” refers to the use of the qualifications by other institutions.
Fearghal
I expect you’re understanding is close to the truth than my first thoughts! But I can’t believe that at this late stage we are still getting messages that resemble the utterings of the Delphic Oracle. Why on Earth don’t the SQA make it crystal clear in the document what they mean by “from more than one context”?