National 3 Modern Languages
Course Specification
This explains the overall structure of the Course, including its purpose and aims and information on the skills, knowledge and understanding that will be developed.
Unit Specifications
These provide an outline of what each Unit will cover within the following Unit Specifications and detail the Outcomes and Assessment Standards.
Course and Unit Support Notes
These provide advice and guidance for teachers/lecturers on learning, teaching and assessment within the Course and its Units.
Past Papers and Marking Instructions
Unit Assessment Support
These documents contain details of Unit assessment task(s), show approaches to gathering evidence and how the evidence can be judged against the Outcomes and Assessment Standards. Teachers/lecturers can arrange access to these confidential documents through their SQA Co-ordinator.
Verification and Course reports
- Spanish Verification Key Messages Round 1
March 2018
Guidance on use of pronouns and gender-neutral language: Modern Languages and Gàidhlig.
We are committed to ensuring our qualifications and assessments are as accessible and inclusive as possible for all learners. The following guidance on candidates’ use of pronouns and gender-neutral language aims to help teachers and lecturers of Modern Languages and Gàidhlig. This includes those delivering National 3 to Advanced Higher Modern Languages and the Modern Languages for Life and Work award.
Productive skills – talking and writing
Pronouns, nouns, adjectives and agreements
Teachers and lecturers should support learners’ ways of referring to themselves and others in the assessment of talking and writing. Using gender-neutral pronouns, nouns and adjectives is now a common feature of inclusive language – whether by creating new forms, adding punctuations, asterisks or using alternative spellings.
A candidate can use masculine, feminine or gender-neutral adjective agreements throughout their writing or performance-talking assessments, where appropriate to the language. However, candidates must use their pronouns and adjectives consistently and stick to the associated conventions of adjectival agreement where appropriate.
For the performance-talking assessment, we have already provided guidance to Advanced Higher visiting assessors and NQ verification teams on the importance of being aware of any potential implicit or unconscious bias towards a candidate’s gender identity.
Before the performance-talking, learners may indicate to the visiting assessor or their teacher or lecturer the pronouns they will use.
Marking of exams
Most exam scripts are anonymised which helps to eliminate any potential implicit or unconscious bias during marking. Markers are not aware of candidates’ gender and are instructed to look for correct and consistent use of pronouns, adjectives and agreements as indicated above.
Understanding Standards
Examples of candidate evidence with commentaries
Examples of candidate evidence and commentaries for unit assessment can be found on the SQA secure site. You can access these through your SQA Coordinator.
Audio Presentation
- Overview of course assessment (4.35 MB)
- National 3 unit assessment (4.02 MB)
- Overview of unit assessment (9.32 MB)
- Gathering and judging the evidence (4.19 MB)
Changes to Understanding Standards materials
Please note: Understanding Standards materials are regularly reviewed to ensure they remain up to date.