Courses
Three things to study. Two lead to a qualification on Scotland’s framework; the third is free and exists because the skills are useful whether or not anyone certificates them.
SCQF level 3
National 3 Administration and IT
A National Course, set and certificated by the awarding body. It’s the entry point into office and administrative work and assumes you’re starting from nothing.
You’ll learn what the job actually involves — organising, communicating, keeping records straight, handling information carefully — and you’ll use the software an employer will expect you to know.
Units
- Administrative Practices — The role itself: duties, deadlines, health and safety at a desk, keeping information secure, and organising a small event or meeting.
- IT Solutions for Administrators — Word processing to a brief, spreadsheets for simple records, and finding what you need in a database.
- Communication in Administration — Email tone, telephone manner, and passing a message on without losing half of it.
- Added Value Unit — One practical task that draws the three units together. This is the piece the assessor weighs most heavily.
Around three hours of video. No deadline, but most people finish inside three months.
SCQF level 4
NPA Administrative Activities
A National Progression Award, a rung up from National 3. Two groups take it: people already working in an office who want the qualification to match what they do, and people who’ve finished the level 3 and want to keep climbing.
The work is the same in kind but held to a higher standard. Documents have to be consistent across a set, not just tidy one at a time.
Units
- Administrative theory in practice — How organisations are structured and where administration sits inside them.
- Word processing — Templates and styles, and keeping a set of documents consistent with each other.
- Spreadsheets — Turning a table of figures into something a manager can read at a glance.
- Presentations — Structure, slide discipline, and speaking to your own material.
Free, no assessment
Everyday digital skills
Short lessons on the things that quietly waste people’s time at work. There’s no certificate at the end because none of it needs one.
It’s also the honest way to try us before paying: same interface, same tutor, same production. If you don’t get on with learning this way, you’ll know within twenty minutes and it will have cost you nothing.
Lessons
- Keyboard shortcuts worth learning — The dozen that save the most time.
- Organising files so you can find them — Naming and folder structures that survive a busy week.
- Spotting a phishing email — What to check before clicking, and what to do if you already clicked.
- Video calls without the fuss — Audio, camera, screen sharing, and not talking over people.
Not sure which one fits?
Tell us what you do now and what you’re aiming at, and we’ll say which course makes sense — including if the answer is neither.