Know your Course – Pearson Higher Nationals (New Specification)

Principal’s Welcome

1 – Programme Specification

This section contains the essential details of your HND programme at the college.Sorry, that was more than you asked for. Here’s just the Programme Specification section, exactly what you pasted, with the Modules rows added and the fixes we agreed on.

“`html

1 – Programme Specification

This section contains the essential details of your HND programme at the college.

2 – Programme Overview

2a – First Year Units

The first year of the HND takes students from foundations to independent practice in your industry. Students start by exploring the history, theories and developments that shape the field, building the practical skills, technical knowledge and professional habits needed to work in the industry, and learning to communicate their ideas across a range of techniques, media and formats. They then apply that grounding to a creative project of their own: analysing a brief, developing their ideas through an iterative process, and using their technical and professional skills to deliver a finished piece of work, which they present to a specific audience and build into a portfolio they can use to support job applications.

The year is divided into two Units:

• Unit A1: Concept and Development (85 credits)
• Unit A2: Creative Project (35 credits)

Unit A1: Concept and Development introduces students to the history, theories and developments shaping the field, and focuses on building the practical skills, technical knowledge and professional habits needed to work in the industry, using a range of techniques, media and formats to communicate ideas to different audiences. Students create a portfolio as part of this unit.

The learning outcomes for Unit A1 are:

Unit A2: Creative Project involves analysing a brief and working through an iterative process to develop students’ own creative solutions, applying the technical skills and professional practices they’ve built to complete the project and present it to a specific audience. Students produce a second portfolio, which they can use to support job applications. This builds on the skills and knowledge developed in Unit A1.

The learning outcomes for Unit A2 are:

2b – Second Year Units

The second year of the HND builds on Year One, with students reflecting on their own progress and career direction, drawing on contextual knowledge, professional problem-solving, technical skill and communication to work out where they’re headed, whether that’s employment, further study or self-employment. They then put all of that into practice on a substantial project of their own, working to a real professional brief to develop, produce and present outcomes that show they’re ready for the industry.

The second year of the HND programme is divided into two units, completed in parallel:

• Unit B1: Personal Professional Development
• Unit B2: Professional Project

Unit B1: Personal Professional Development focuses on students reflecting on their own progress and direction, drawing on contextual knowledge, professional problem-solving, technical skill, professional behaviour and communication to support where they go next.

The learning outcomes for Unit B1 are:

Unit B2: Professional Project involves students undertaking a substantial project in response to a professional brief, developing and presenting outcomes that demonstrate their readiness for the industry. This builds on the personal and professional development undertaken in Unit B1.

The learning outcomes for Unit B2 are:

2c – Modules

The two units consist of several timetabled modules, each covering a specific area of study. Together, the modules provide a broad foundation of practical skills and contextual understanding relevant to your creative field.

In the first year, the modules introduce essential knowledge and skills, which are built upon in the second year. For example, in Graphic Design you might study “Design Fundamentals” in the first year and “Advanced Design Practice” in the second; in Music Performance you might study “Performance Technique” in the first year and “Advanced Performance” in the second. The same pattern applies across Illustration, Music Production and Advanced Games Production, though module names will vary.

Each timetabled module will typically contribute to both Units across the year, one strand of work toward Unit A1/Unit B1 and one toward Unit A2/Unit B2. Depending on your course, this might mean two separate assignment briefs per module, or a single overarching brief for the year with guidance underneath it covering each strand. Either way, a single subject you attend each week feeds into both of that year’s Unit portfolios, not just one. Your course coordinator will explain exactly how this works for your specific course.

2d – Assessment

Each timetabled module contributes one element to your Unit’s overall portfolio. For example, if your course has eight timetabled modules, your portfolio for that Unit is made up of eight elements. The exact number varies by course, and on some courses, a few modules may be integrated together to form a single combined element.

You must submit every element in a Unit, there are no exceptions. You will not receive an individual grade for each module or element. Instead, your whole portfolio is assessed holistically against the five Standard Assessment Criteria (Contextual Knowledge, Idea Generation and Development, Technical Knowledge and Skill, Professional Practice, Communication), and one overall grade for the Unit is agreed at the Unit’s exam board.

If one or more elements are missing, or don’t meet the minimum Pass standard, the Unit is recorded as an overall Referral, and you’ll be asked to resubmit each of those specific elements. A capped resubmission only caps the evidence that element contributes, it doesn’t cap the Unit itself. A strong portfolio overall can still achieve a Merit or Distinction, even where one element has been capped at a Pass.

2e – Credits

The credit weightings for the first-year units are:

• Unit A1: Concept and Development – 85 credits
• Unit A2: Creative Project – 35 credits

To pass each unit, you must produce a portfolio consisting of work produced in all of your timetabled modules that meets the required standard. Passing Unit A1 earns you 85 credits, after which you progress to Unit A2. Passing Unit A2 earns you the remaining 35 credits. Accumulating 120 credits qualifies you to advance to the second year.

The credit weightings for the second-year units are:

• Unit B1: Personal Professional Development – 45 credits
• Unit B2: Professional Project – 75 credits

As with the first year of the course, you must produce a portfolio consisting of work produced in all of your timetabled modules that meets the required standard. Passing grades in Units B1 and B2 earns you the 120 credits required to be awarded the Higher National Diploma.

2f – Progression

To progress to the second year, you must earn 120 credits by passing both first-year units.

To complete the second year, and achieve a Higher National Diploma, you must earn 120 credits by passing both second-year units.

2g – Qualifications

After completing the first year, you can continue to the second year and earn an additional 120 credits. Students who earn 240 credits over two years will receive a Higher National Diploma (HND). Alternatively, after the first year and 120 credits, you can opt for a Higher National Certificate (HNC).

3 – Assessment

We will deal with some of the important details later in this section, but please remember the following:

• Every assignment is important; you cannot pass the course if you do not submit all your assignments.

This may be different to what you have experienced before, especially if you are coming to our HND from one of our QQI Level 5 courses. Your lecturers will support and mentor you throughout the assessment process, but please do not lose sight of the fact that every assignment brief is important.

3a – Assessment Methods

Each unit will have different methods of assessing you, and your lecturers and course coordinators have worked hard to ensure that each assessment is relevant, important and useful. Given how different each unit is, it is best to speak to each of your lecturers about the assessment for their units.

In the meantime, here are some things which are common to all units.

Assessments can be broken down into two categories:

1. Academic (theory, understanding, analysis or thinking) — these generally ask you to think and put an argument or point of view forward for discussion.
   For example: present an argument for the most significant movement in graphic design or illustration of the last 50 years, or critically compare two contrasting approaches to producing or performing a piece of music.
2. Practical (skills-based) — these generally ask you to perform tasks using skills which you have developed on the course.
   For example: produce a finished illustration or design piece in response to a professional brief, record and produce a short piece of music, or prototype a playable section of a game demonstrating a specific mechanic.

All units are practically assessed, where possible. The HNDs are practical courses, and the majority of the work you do will be practical.

There are going to be written assignments too, such as research, essays, reflections etc. 

When a lecturer has designed a non-practical assignment, keep in mind that they and the rest of the teaching team have worked hard to ensure it’s relevant and useful to the course you are studying.

Having a solid understanding of how your discipline is put together will help you when you’re asked to create your own work in practical assignments. In other words, most of the written assignments you get will help you with the practical ones.

The last thing to say is that not all non-practical work means having your head stuck in books or reading technical articles. This type of work is about thinking and understanding, and you can learn just as much about your craft by studying professional work closely and paying attention to how it’s put together, as well as critically reflecting on your own work which you produce as part of your study.

3b – Assessment Regulations

Ballyfermot College operates the Higher Nationals in accordance with all relevant BTEC quality assurance guides. These guides are underpinned by the college’s own policies, available through MyCampus.ie.

3c – Submission of Coursework

Within the first few weeks of the course, students will be provided with an assessment schedule for their units. This is a year plan, which outlines the submission dates for your various assignments. Students must ensure that they do not miss any of the deadlines.

3d – Attendance

Given the practical and teamworking nature of the HND courses, attendance is crucial. In some units, absence from a critical class or missing an assessment date may impact the grades of other students, such as in team-based projects.

A minimum of 75% attendance is required in all modules. The college monitors attendance daily and is required to report it to bodies such as SUSI, DEASP and SOLAS, so poor attendance can also affect your grant or allowance. Prolonged unexplained absence may result in you being deemed to have opted out of the course.

Full detail is in the Attendance, Retention and Fitness to Practice Policy in the Student Handbook and the college policies section on MyCampus.ie.

Ballyfermot College understands that some absences cannot be avoided, though we expect students to notify us in advance or as soon as possible after an absence and to take responsibility for catching up on any work missed.

Students who feel their studies are being impacted by absence should contact their course coordinator as soon as possible. The course team and college will offer advice and, where possible and appropriate, provide additional assistance to help students overcome the impact of their absence.

3e – Extensions to Submission Deadlines

If you become aware in advance of a reason you won’t be able to meet a submission deadline, you can apply in writing for an extension. In exceptional circumstances — such as illness or bereavement — a revised deadline can be agreed in writing with your course coordinator.

Where a deadline is missed with no advance notice, the grade is recorded as a fail, pending any action you take afterwards.

Once your overall results are confirmed at the exam board, there’s a separate right of appeal against that final result: BTEC students can appeal at no cost within 10 days of receiving results, by emailing info@bcfe.cdetb.ie.

4 – Assignment Submission, Resubmission and Repeating Units

In order to pass a unit, you must first submit all of your assignment work from all of your modules. Your whole portfolio is then assessed holistically, as explained in Section 2d.

If you do not submit all of your assignment work, you will not pass that unit at your first attempt. You’ll normally get a chance to resubmit the missing work, as explained below, but if it’s still not submitted after that, you will not pass the unit, and you will not be able to complete the qualification.

4a – Reassessment

If any element of your Unit A1, A2, B1 or B2 portfolio is missing or doesn’t meet the Pass standard, you’ll have the opportunity to resubmit that specific element, however:

• You’ll only get one opportunity for reassessment of that element.
• You’ll resubmit the original piece of work or complete a new assignment, as agreed with your module teacher.
• The resubmitted element is capped at a Pass. This doesn’t automatically cap your overall Unit grade, only the element itself.
• You cannot be reassessed on an element you’ve already submitted and passed.

All resubmissions on this course are handled as summer projects, submitted after the main academic year has finished. A fee may apply. Exact dates change each year, check MyCampus.ie or your course coordinator for the current deadline.

If you’re unable to submit your summer project by the deadline, you must contact your course coordinator as soon as possible. Your coordinator will consult with the college’s senior leadership team, who will consider your situation on a case-by-case basis.

4b – Repeating Units

If, after resubmitting the outstanding element(s), your overall Unit grade still doesn’t reach a Pass, the next step is repeating the Unit as a whole.

A student who, for the first assessment opportunity and resubmission opportunity, still failed to achieve a passing grade can:

• At the Exam Board’s discretion, repeat the unit.
• The student must study the unit again with full attendance and payment of the appropriate fees.
• The overall grade for a successfully completed repeat is capped at a Pass.
• Units can only be repeated once.

Repeating an entire academic year is a separate process, with its own request deadline and no automatic right to a place. Full detail is in the Course Completion section of the Student Handbook.

5 – Qualification Grading

Your Qualification Grade reflects your overall performance for the year. This section explains how it is calculated.

5a – Unit Grades

In the first year of the HND, you will receive two Unit Grades: one for Unit A1 and one for Unit A2. These two Unit Grades will be combined to determine your overall Qualification Grade for the year. The second year of the course is the same, with your Unit B1 and B2 grades adding together to arrive at your overall grade for the year.

All units are assessed based on the following criteria:

• Contextual Knowledge
• Idea Generation and Development
• Technical Knowledge and Skill
• Professional Practice
• Communication

Each criterion is graded on a points scale of:

Please note that unit grades are provisional until they have been confirmed by the College’s Exam Boards. Feedback you receive from a lecturer reflects their review of your submitted work, but the final grade is decided by your entire teaching team at the Exam Boards.

5b – Calculating your Qualification Grade

To calculate your Qualification Grade, simply add the points from your Unit A1 and Unit A2 grades together if you are a first year student, and the points from your Unit B1 and B2 grades if you are a second year student.

Your final grade for the year will be determined as follows:

5c – Example: Achieving an Overall Merit

Here’s an example of how a student could achieve an overall Merit grade in Year 1 of the course.

5d – The Assessment Criteria

Ensure you understand the assessment criteria (below) to maximise your success in each unit. The first table is for the HND Year 1 units (A1 and A2), and the second table is for HND Year 2 units (B1 and B2).

6 – Grading Expectations

Grading in the first year is different to the second year, and it’s not just about difficulty within the same standard. The bar itself rises: work that would earn a Merit in Year One is roughly what’s expected just to achieve a Pass in Year Two.

7 – Assessment Authenticity

As a student, it’s crucial to understand the guidelines for ensuring the authenticity of your work. Here are some important points to keep in mind:

Authenticity of Your Work

You should only submit work that represents your independent effort. This means that the evidence you provide for assessments must be your own creation.

Declaration Statement

When submitting your work for assessment you confirm the following:

• The evidence you’re submitting is entirely your own.
• You acknowledge that making a false declaration is considered a form of academic misconduct.

Maintaining Authenticity

To ensure your work remains authentic, it’s important to:

• Complete assignments with integrity, avoiding any form of plagiarism or cheating.
• Seek clarification from your instructors if you’re uncertain about any aspect of an assignment.
• Refrain from seeking unauthorised help or using work that is not your own.
• Note that all work submitted is checked using software which screens for plagiarism, unclear referencing and potential AI-generated content.

If, during an assessment, your lecturer suspects that some or all of the evidence in your work is not authentic, they will follow the college’s policies for addressing academic misconduct. Remember, maintaining the authenticity of your work is not only an academic requirement but also an important aspect of personal and professional integrity. Always strive to produce work that reflects your own effort and understanding. More information on this can be found in the policies section of mycampus.ie by clicking here.

8 – Feedback

As a college, we prioritise the delivery of effective assessment feedback as an integral part of our commitment to continuous guided learning. Our approach to assessment feedback serves to foster learning and facilitate improvement for our students. It not only encourages them to reflect on their performance but also equips them with the skills to leverage feedback effectively.

We take pride in providing constructive and valuable feedback that helps students comprehend the strengths and weaknesses of their work. Our feedback includes positive reinforcement where applicable, alongside clear guidance on how to enhance their performance. We ensure that our feedback aligns with the Learning Outcomes and assessment criteria, helping students grasp how these factors influence the overall grading process.

9 – Teaching and Learning

We actively engage in teaching methods that stimulate academic involvement, foster challenging yet constructive discussions, and encourage students to self-reflect in preparation for their professional careers. Furthermore, we promote autonomous and independent learning to help students develop the academic skills, experiences, and techniques necessary as they progress through different levels of study.

Our focus is on developing programmes geared towards preparing students for the workforce. We design curricula that incorporate employability skills, emphasise ethical and diverse perspectives, and introduce students to both contemporary and foundational research. All our teaching and learning approaches align with the expectations of employers and society, guided by external benchmarks such as professional and statutory bodies. This way, students who complete a Higher National Diploma will possess the attributes, skills, principles, and behaviours necessary to make valuable contributions to local, national, and international industry.

We highly value the contributions students make to their own educational experiences, as well as the experiences of their peers. Student engagement and input are integral to a student’s life within our programmes. We collect student feedback on various teaching and learning matters, which we use to inform and improve future practices in both the programme of study and the college itself.

9a – Quality and Depth of Learning

We ensure a high-quality teaching and learning experience for our students. This includes providing them with qualified and experienced lecturers, an engaging curriculum, fostering motivation and inspiration among students, and offering a support system that addresses both their pastoral and academic needs.

In addition to delivering a quality learning experience, we also encourage our students to achieve a deep understanding of their subjects, moving beyond basic explanations and descriptions. We expect our students to demonstrate the ability to analyse data and information, make sense of it, and form evaluative judgments. As they advance in their studies, there’s an increasing emphasis on applying critical thinking skills to synthesise knowledge, drawing from relevant theories, concepts, and models.

Our commitment to delivering a quality learning experience with both depth and breadth aligns with established educational frameworks. Specifically, our Higher National Certificate (HNC) and Higher National Diploma (HND) align with the Level 6 Higher Certificate on the Irish qualifications framework. This ensures that the HNC and HND programmes maintain the same level of academic rigour and expectations as the early years of a university degree programme.

We aim to provide our students with an experience that mirrors what they would encounter at a university programme. This includes:

• Access to comprehensive library resources, including required reading materials, research papers, and journals.
• Utilisation of a virtual learning environment (VLE) to enhance teaching.
• Collaboration with local employers to present real-life case studies.
• Actively seeking and considering feedback from our students.

To further support our students, we offer access to Higher National Global Study Skills, an online toolkit available on the HN Global website, www.highernationals.com. This resource aids in the delivery, assessment, and quality assurance of BTECs within our centres. Additionally, there are numerous free-to-access websites that can assist students in developing their learning and academic study skills.

10 – Engaging with our Students

As a college, we place great importance on actively involving students in various aspects of our programmes. This engagement is a fundamental part of our approach to teaching and learning. We value and encourage student participation in shaping their educational experiences, which can encompass a range of activities.

We actively seek the input of our students in multiple ways. This includes soliciting their opinions on how teaching and learning are structured, their contributions to curriculum design, and their insights into assessment strategies designed to evaluate their knowledge and comprehension.

To capture the student voice and feedback, we employ various formal mechanisms and channels. This involves designating student representatives who serve as the collective voice for their respective student cohorts. Additionally, students participate the Student Council. 

However, our commitment to gathering feedback from students extends beyond formal mechanisms. We believe in maintaining ongoing discourse with students, where teachers adopt an approach to adjust their teaching methods, creating an environment that best supports various learning styles. Just as employers may have a role in influencing assessment design, students also have an active role in shaping assignments, making them exciting, dynamic, and engaging while ensuring they provide meaningful and informative assessments.

A key advantage of involving students in decisions about teaching, learning, and assessment is that it fosters their engagement in their own educational journey. This engagement empowers students and cultivates a sense of ownership not only over their personal learning experiences but also over matters related to teaching, learning, and assessment more broadly. Ideally, students see themselves as partners in their educational journey, not just participants in a process.

11 – Resources

11a – HN Global

Ballyfermot College is excited to be a part of the HN Global programme and community. HN Global is a dedicated online learning platform, containing various free resources to support students who are on their learning journey. The global forum connects students and tutors with the opportunity to discuss common themes and share good practice.

A full list of student services and resources can be found on MyCampus.ie. Resources specific to your courses can include recording studios, digital and print facilities, computer labs and collaborative spaces. Your lecturers will provide you with more details of these as they become important.