[Alan Furniss]

08/01/2020 at 4:02 pm

Just so everyone else knows that the publication date for N5 and Higher Courseworks is 17th January on SQA secure.

Uplift for these at the other end is 18th March for N5 and 23rd April for Higher and Advanced Higher.

[Tracy Rennie]

17/01/2020 at 9:42 am

Can anyone tell me when exactly the assignments will be on the secure site as my faculty head has just had a look and they are not there yet.

[dbrowning]

17/01/2020 at 9:47 am

It will just appear at some point today. I checked this morning too and will keep checking as the morning goes on. Things are normally up by midday but it could be later in the afternoon. The SQA seems to operate on the same policy as many delivery companies – “we’ll give you a day but when in that day… who knows..?!”

[Tracy Rennie]

17/01/2020 at 9:48 am

Thanks will ask her to keep looking.

[Joe Stanfield]

17/01/2020 at 12:07 pm

Looks like N5 coursework is up, but is labelled January 2019 under each item – clicking on the individual resources loads a pdf (or whatever doc you click) with the name of the item ended in 2020 so appears to be the correct files.

First time teaching in Scotland, but do they always release the coursework as individual pieces and not on zip file to download?

[Andrew Bratton]

20/01/2020 at 2:28 pm

Has anyone had a look at the N5 Task 2 part yet? Pupils are to implement a program that matches the flowchart design. The flowchart at a glance seems to want to use a Do Loop Until with adding 1 to a counter which, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t facilitated in Python. My pupils will most likely use a for loop which then doesn’t match the design. Will they be penalised?

[Joe Stanfield]

20/01/2020 at 3:55 pm

@Andrew Bratton

Are we allowed to post completed solutions to the assignment tasks?

I did the N5 and Higher Programming and Website tasks over the weekend – will share my code if allowed.

Also, off the top of my head isn’t that Do Loop Until using a counter simply a while loop

ie.

while count != 5:
code
count += 1

?

[Alasdair Sharp]

20/01/2020 at 4:10 pm

I was having a look at them today. I took that to be a For loop. As far as I know there isn’t a way to show a fixed loop in a flow chart, it’s just a conditional loop with an incrementing counter (although the condition should really be at the start of the loop), and in VB for example that’s how the loop works.
Python for loops are fundamentally different but they can’t penalise the pupils for that, and even a while loop in Python wouldn’t match the design.
I reckon there will be a huge split with pupils using fixed or conditional loops anyway that as long as the loop repeats enough times they’ll get the mark.

[Alasdair Sharp]

20/01/2020 at 4:15 pm

Are we allowed to post completed solutions to the assignment tasks?

Even though this is a closed group I wouldn’t post your code for an assignment, just in case it gets out and you get it in the neck.

It’d also be really embarrassing if you’ve gotten it wrong. ;P

[Peter Thoresen]

20/01/2020 at 4:21 pm

From what I remember from the first year of the new courseworks, posting of solutions is a big no. Any discussion that could help a pupil must also be avoided.
Pupils should not have access to these forums, but this cannot be guaranteed.

[Joe Stanfield]

21/01/2020 at 12:24 pm

Ok, I have been advised elsewhere not to as well, so that’s answered that!

[Brian Hughes]

21/01/2020 at 12:49 pm

In task 1d, is there supposed to be 3 reasons why the SQL would fail?

[Andrew Bratton]

21/01/2020 at 2:29 pm

The question only asks for 2 reasons and only gives 2 answer boxes and worth 2 marks.

[Brian Hughes]

21/01/2020 at 2:49 pm

I just wasn’t sure if there was an error in the question

[Lee Murray]

21/01/2020 at 3:33 pm

Regarding the flowchart and the lack of repeat-until in python, you can get around this problem by having a control variable and switching it when a condition is met at the end of the loop. It’s terrible, but works and can be used to match designs that insist on a repeat-until.

counter = 1
go = True
while go:
  #do a thing
  if counter == loop_limit:
    go = False
  counter += 1

Hopefully this is generic enough to not be considered a ‘solution’.

If not, I’ll delete it (or an admin can).