Higher Nationals Newsletter September 2022
New qualifications, issue releases, training sessions and more.
Higher Technical Education Skills Injection Fund
There are only a few weeks left to submit your bid and apply for the HTE skills injection fund before the deadline of 5 October. If you are planning to deliver Higher Technical Qualifications and want to find out more about how you could use this funding to deliver these, get in touch with us to find out more.
New HTQ approval: BTEC HN Community Coaching for England
The 2023 revalidated BTEC Higher National qualifications in Community Coaching for England includes an enhanced work-related curriculum that is designed to address an increasing need for high quality professional and technical education pathways at Level 4. These qualifications equip students with the right skills and competencies for the workplace, or progression to further higher education study. Pathways have also been aligned to IfATE occupational standards.
New BTEC Higher Nationals in Engineering
Six new Engineering Higher Nationals for first teach from September 2022 are now live and available to all centres. Specification documents are available on our website for the following:
- HNC Automation and Control Engineering
- HNC Electrical Systems Engineering
- HNC Electronic Systems Engineering
- HND Electronic and Electrical Systems Engineering
- HNC/HND Computer Systems Engineering
- HNC/HND Space Technologies
Explore HN Flex
Pearson's HN Flex offering allows you to easily adopt and deliver bite-sized Higher National units, from our suite of qualifications. This flexible approach not only benefits students by enabling them to ‘stack’ units without having to enrol on a full Higher National qualification, but also helps build relationships with employers by rapidly addressing skills gaps.
Find out more about how HN Flex benefited The Bedford College and University Centre in our short video.
Higher National Programme
Structures and Unit Combinations
As the new academic year begins for many centres, programme teams are advised to carefully monitor student programme plans to ensure that students study correct mandatory and optional units required to achieve the HNC/ HND award(s).
Please contact us if you require any clarification with selecting the correct unit combinations.
New Specification issue releases
Computing
Issue 3 of HN Computing and Issue 2 of HN Computing for England have been released. Access them now, for the most up-to-date versions of the qualifications, to check the Programme Structures, and ensure a permitted combination of units has been selected.
Furthermore, a new booklet of Authorised Assignment Briefs for HNs in Computing and Computing for England (first teaching September 2022) is now available on HN Global.
Applied Sciences
Issue 6 of the HNs in Applied Sciences specification will be published on our website and HN Global soon, containing completely re-written units 2 and 27. We appreciate the timing of their release isn’t ideal; if you have already started teaching one or both of these units from issue 5 of the specification, please continue. If you haven’t started teaching you can use issue 6 once released.
The new units will have different unit codes from the current ones so please ensure learners are allocated the correct unit. It’s also very important to make your External Examiner aware of the specification being used for units 2 and 27.
Ambassador spotlight: Charlotte Cartwright
Find out how Charlotte has developed a range of transferable skills by working as a Laboratory Scientist Apprentice, whilst also studying an HND in Applied Chemistry. Read Charlotte's story.
Do you know any Higher National graduates who have taken on new roles? If so, we’d love to hear from you!
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