NPA Games validation event

The validation event for the new NPAs in Computer Games Development (at SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6) was held today at Jury's Inn in Glasgow. The Validation Panel was convened by Nigel Kennington, of Telford College, who was on the other side of the table not so long ago.

The outcome was that the award was validated with conditions (or, more accurately, "not validated until conditions are met"). There were three conditions and a couple of recommendations. But nothing that will take very long to fix.

So we were delighted with the outcome. We hope to address the conditions by the end of June and have the awards available to centres by July. The unit specifications will be on the SQA website by the end of June. The next stage is to develop assessment material for the awards, which we will commence over the summer.

There has been a lot of interest in this development and I think that several centres will want to use them immediately.

These NPAs compliment the recently validated HNC/D awards. The final piece in the jigsaw will be the NC development, which is being led by Forth Valley College.

Please contact Hilary if you want to know more about these NPAs; contact Caroline about the HN awards; and Fiona about the proposed NC.

My thanks to everyone who has been involved in this project, especially the lead developer, Julie McLaren of Madras College, and the convenor of the panel (Nigel).