NextGen: HN - Meta-skills
Meta-skills are transferable behaviours and abilities that help you adapt and succeed in life, study and work.
There are three broad categories of meta-skills:
- Self-management – focusing, integrity, adapting, initiative.
- Social intelligence – communicating, feeling, collaborating, leading.
- Innovation – curiosity, creativity, sense-making, critical thinking.
What's different about NextGen: HN?
NextGen: HN courses will include the development of meta-skills as part of their core content, complementing vocational, academic and technical aspects of the learning. Employers, lecturers and training providers have always supported learners to develop meta-skills, even if they haven’t used this term. By formally including meta-skills now, we can make this support much more visible, and learners will be better able to actively develop and articulate their career-ready skills, whatever their future pathways.
Employers in every sector of our economy are increasingly prioritising the behavioural or “meta” skills of their employees. Technical know-how, job specific content and business operating environments change quickly. Meta skills offer organisations greater adaptability and responsiveness to change...
We look for the ability to get on with other people, be able to work in a team, empathy, well presented, being on time for interview, demonstrate a good work ethic, all backed up by good references. Experience is helpful, but if they don't have these other qualities then they generally don't work out.
What we do is so much more than simply prepare people for work. We help to build (re-build in some cases) the whole person through our courses, and meta-skills are an important building material.
Society needs people who understand who they are and what their character strengths are. With this knowledge, they can go out into society and be — not simply employees — but core contributors to society in all sorts of ways. Of course, this can be through employment, but also be through their myriad interactions and ideas.
Resources
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Learners
Meta-skills – SQA Academy modules for learners
Designed specifically for NextGen: HN, these modules can help you to better understand and work with meta-skills. The modules will build your understanding of meta-skills and guide you through the process of meta-skills development.
NextGen: HN – Meta-skills for learners
Meta-skills – Development log
This optional Development Log can be downloaded and used to record and track your progress with the meta-skills outcome.
Meta-skills – Development log (889 KB)
Meta-skills – Assessment information for learners
This document explains how you are being assessed and graded on your work with meta-skills within your NextGen: HN qualification.
Meta-skills - Assessment information for learners
Meta-skills – Stepping up from HNC to HND
This short document explains what to expect from meta-skills if you are continuing from HNC to HND.
Practitioners
Meta-skills – SQA Academy module for practitioners
This course offers information and guidance for practitioners about the inclusion, delivery, and assessment of meta-skills in NextGen: HN qualifications. It also functions as a companion guide for the learner modules, which offer optional activities.
NextGen: HN – Meta-skills for practitioners
Meta-skills – Assessment and grading information for centres
This document contains assessment and grading information for meta-skills, including evidence requirements, additional guidance and an assessment checklist for practitioners.
Meta-skills - Assessment and grading information for centres
Meta-skills: Stepping up from HNC to HND
This short document provides guidance for practitioners when learners are continuing their meta-skills development from HNC to HND.
Meta-skills — stepping up from HNC to HND - advice for practitioners
Meta-skills Development Log
The optional Development Log can be downloaded and used by learners to record and track their progress with the meta-skills outcome.
An accessible PDF version compatible with screen readers and assistive technologies.
Meta-skills Development Log - PDF
An MS Word version, which practitioners can edit and adapt to contexts.
When adapted, we recommend that you publish the form as a tagged PDF to ensure maximum accessibility.
For guidance, please visit WebAIM: PDF Accessibility - Accessible Forms in Acrobat
Meta-skills Development Log - Word Doc
UShare Resources
UShare offers a collection of resources which relate to the three key processes of meta-skills development: self-awareness, goal setting and reflective practice.
Meta-skills resources on Ushare
Skills 4.0: a skills model to drive Scotland’s future
The meta-skills model used in Next Gen HN, developed by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Centre for Work-based Learning Scotland.
Skills 4.0: A skills model to drive Scotland’s future
Meta-skills in practice documents
We asked subject-specialist writers with experience of delivering meta-skills in NextGen: HN Qualifications to write a ‘Meta-skills in Practice’ guide, giving us a sense of how they approach the integration of meta-skills within course delivery. Qualifications are listed below.
- HNC Accounting meta-skills in practice (324 KB)
- HNC Acting and Performance meta-skills in practice (244 KB)
- HNC Childhood Practice meta-skills in practice (358 KB)
- HNC Computing meta-skills in practice (334 KB)
- HNC Engineering meta-skills in practice (329 KB)
- HNC Horticulture meta-skills in practice (357 KB)
- HNC Physical Activity and Health meta-skills in practice (339 KB)
- HNC Social Sciences meta-skills in practice (348 KB)
- HNC Social Services meta-skills in practice (356 KB)
- HNC Television meta-skills in practice (402 KB)
We propose a refreshed purpose for colleges that is unambiguously focused on helping businesses to grow by making sure they have access to people with the technological, vocational, and 'meta' skills needed in the decade ahead - and beyond.
Practically speaking, the challenge isn’t implementing meta-skills, which have always underpinned our practice, but in signposting them to learners in ways they can quantify and observe. This is vital because our learners will be dependent on these core skills for their employability.