1. An HN Accounting Practitioner’s Academic Year
Catherine Mancini

2. About me College lecturer for 27 years
Taught most of the core HN Accounting units over the years
Been a member of the quality support team for business qualifications for five or six years
Been involved in writing or vetting many of the specifications and ASPs you are using
EV at central verification and prior verification

3. Purpose of this presentation
To reflect on our role as lecturers in teaching our students and gathering the evidence which allows SQA to award qualifications to them
To share my experience as a practitioner of carrying out this role over the years
Look at a typical academic year for an HN accounting lecturer and the challenges we face

4. Provided by SQA Framework for course Unit specifications
ASPs for all mandatory units
Prior verification service
External verification to confirm decisions
Development visits on request

5. The academic year Given a timetable Request latest specification/ASP
Internal verification/standardisation meetings
Teach/assess/mark/remediate/re-assess
Internal verification
Prepare for external verification (maybe)
Record results

6. The unit specification
Check that it is the latest version – most units have had updates in the last few years
Outcomes and Evidence Requirements are mandatory, the rest is advisory
Check assessment conditions
Check error tolerance

7. The ASP Check that it is the latest version
Make sure it meets the Evidence Requirements in the specification
Decide if you are going to use it or develop your own
Update if necessary to reflect changes in tax rates or accounting standards

8. Developing your own
We generally need an alternative for resits and sometimes there is only one ASP
Most of our units are quite prescriptive and alternatives are just a different story with new numbers. This would only need to be internally verified
If your alternative is significantly different from the ASP prior verification is recommended

9. Internal verification/standardisation
Your college should have a policy on this setting out who is responsible for organising meetings, who attends and how it is recorded
With the mergers this has become more difficult to manage
Any changes to ASPs should be recorded at these meetings

10. Teaching and Assessing
The teaching part is up to you
You should make sure you have covered all the knowledge and skills required even if some of them are not in the assessment instrument you are using. They could be required in the Graded Unit
Make sure you conduct the assessment using the stated conditions so that all our students are treated fairly and consistently

11. Marking Check the error tolerance ASP will provide a solution
Decide what errors you are treating as principle and what is arithmetic (not always clear cut)
There is some advice on this on the website but sometimes professional judgement is required
Clearly show decisions made on scripts (you may have to present your marked scripts for verification)

12. Pass/Remediate/Resit
Check the error tolerance
Within tolerance is obviously a pass
Outwith tolerance – remediate or resit?
No definite answer to this one – professional judgement required
If it looks like student knows what they are doing and maybe has an error too many then remediation may be acceptable otherwise it would be a resit

13. Internal verification
Again there will be a college policy on this which ensures that a sample of marked scripts are checked by someone else
Some policies state that results are never recorded before verification takes place and others record but don’t submit to SQA before verification

14. Prepare for external verification
If you have done all of the above there will be no preparation required other than gathering scripts
EV will want to see evidence of internal verification activity and standardisation in line with college policy and accurately marked scripts in line with error tolerance in the specification
Don’t worry they generally don’t bite

15. Record results Again different colleges have different processes
You might record, admin support might record, managers might record
Retain evidence for three weeks? after closing date of unit unless you have been informed of an EV visit
Go on holiday and prepare to do it all again!