National 4/5 Practical Woodworking
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Re:
As a teacher of 30 years experience I can see the skills diminishing by the hour. When i were a lad, i went to Reid Kerr college (Paisley FE ) for practical skills as part of my engineering degree. Above the door to all the craft workshops stood a sign " let no man enter here who would deny craftsmanship" that stuck with me. I absolutly did my best and put my best into every single project so I could show it off with pride" i made this" . The bureaucracy has killed off pride and replaced it with "evidence".We are craftsmen not policemen. TAKE A PRIDE IN YOUR WORK. let the pupils have a pride in their work ,do not hide it in cupboards.
Pupils constantly having to moving tool-rest is adding needless risk and equally important adding a lot more time to complete in large classes with few lathes.
Issue with storage is something which could maybe be looked at, but, this was an issue which was also raised with old qualification and was addressed through evidence only having to be retained for 3 weeks after completion dates.
With regards the changing of sizes, every centre and every teacher would like to have their own, unfortunately to allow assessment of tolerances etc and consistency, minimum sizes are required. These are specified by SQA for that reason.
Courses are not designed to meet the financial issues in specific centres, but to ensure standards are maintained and that consistency is ensured nationally. Regardless of any sizes given, there would always be centres who would want to reduce the sizes for financial reasons, where do we draw the line?
The courses will evolve naturally as the previous qualifications did. Instigating a petition when things don't go your way in school is perhaps something we would associate more with pupils.
Re:
The lack of a Higher because it will have paperwork! Sorry but I'm old enough to remember teaching Higher Woodwork, it had paperwork it may have been a pain but it was completed and the end on exam was duly sat and passed like any other subject.
We want to use our own models as the models provided by the SQA are very poor, both in the model itself, but also the quality of the drawings and documentation. We've had a nightmare trying to get our models pre-verified (unsuccessful!) SQA refuse to visit us to discuss face to face!!! The fact that the practise joints have to correct right at the start of the course means that we have a lot of pupils failing due to there limited ability and experience. This means they have to do it again (several times for some pupils). This all adds to our ever increasing materials bill!!
Woodwork N4/5 is a badly thought out course, I feel I no longer teach but only give out assessments and gather evidence. There is no progression in this course, pupils have to produce a range of joints at the start of the course to the same tolerances as at the end of the course.
The other practical course, Metalwork, is even worse than Woodwork. It is not possible to make some of the models from the mistake ridden, confused drawings produced by the SQA. I have had three attempts at getting prior verification for my own three unit models, it has been refused each time. The prior verifier has not once used the right documentation for the course, he has copied and pasted from one unit to another, making it meaningless for one unit, he has completely ignored units on two occasions, he gives wrong names for tools and gives wrong sizes. There are many other mistakes he has made. The SQA has told me to accept this verifiers decision as final despite the above.
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