I am also baffled as to why certain content has been arbitrarily removed from both courses. Why has calculated fields been taken out of N5? Doing this knocks out one the key N5 components of the Music Fans coursework task. Was this taken into account when the decision to just excise it from the course was made? I suspect not.
The removal of content from Higher that are covered in N5 might appear justifiable (although I wholly disagree with it as the ethos of CfE is that some candidates would go straight to sitting Higher, so how does this move sit with the CfE scrutineers?), but again this has a knock-on effect for Unit Assessment – the Pack 1 SD+D Outcome 1 tasks ask about Input Validation which has been expunged by this latest document. Does this invalidate that entire Unit Assessment? Can we expect an update on this forthwith? Did anyone actually think about this before drawing the red line?
These documents create more problems than they solve and once again stand in testament to the lack of joined-up thinking and quality control exercised in their creation.
PS. I also see DAT listed as a backup media in Higher. DAT is an almost defunct technology, and putting it in the course runs the risk of it becoming another ‘ZIP’ drive (a reference for those of us who can remember teaching about them in Standard Grade several years after they had been withdrawn from the market).
