Discover the benefits and details of our new approach to learning

• LinkedIn (opens new window)
• Twitter (opens new window)

By ICAS

28 July 2023

Our refreshed CA syllabus brings with it a new approach to learning. Discover the details of our new approach and the benefits to you and your students.

A new syllabus and a new approach to learning

Driven by a renewed vision and our ambitious strategy, we’re evolving and innovating to redefine learning at ICAS. As part of this work, we’ve refreshed our CA syllabus to ensure it remains future fit and keeps pace with advances in technology, data and sustainability.

And with our refreshed syllabus, it’s not just what your students learn that's changed, many of the ways in which they learn are also new and improved.

Here we outline the benefits of our new approach to you and your students. You’ll also find more detail of how it will work in practice, including our updated 3-year terms plan, our new learning and assessment schedules, and what it all means for each level of the new syllabus.

Some of the features and benefits of our new approach

Digital courses that maximise engagement

Students’ self-study days will be centred around our new platform Advantage. There they’ll find state-of-the-art learning material that’s built following the very best in digital pedagogy. The interactive courses use a variety of formats, such as video and interactive flash cards, and are designed to maximise student engagement. Modules are broken down into bite-sized sections, to help students maintain focus and motivation, and we’ve factored in the latest guidance to ensure accessibility for all learner types.

Skills checkers, formative tests and quizzes to embed learning

We’ve included skills checkers, formative tests and quizzes throughout the courses. These will reinforce and embed the learning as the student progresses and highlight areas to which they need to return and recap. They’ll also help to ensure students are prepared to the best of their abilities prior to assessment. (Students with exemptions at the Knowledge level will still be given access to all this digital course content.)

A more-authentic and less-pressured assessment experience

The summative assessment method for relevant courses will include coursework. This will provide students with a direct practical link to the topics covered in the syllabus and an authentic, workplace-applicable experience. The inclusion of summative coursework will also help to lessen reliance on final summative assessments and improve student wellbeing by relieving some of the pressure they’ve traditionally faced.

Extra support with pre-assessment drop-ins

Most core courses will include a pre-assessment online drop-in session. These sessions will give students an opportunity to put any last-minute questions to their tutors and help ease concerns ahead of the assessment.

Tutor touchpoints – course workshops

To further increase student engagement and provide that key face-to-face connection, we’ve embedded a range of tutor touchpoints into the syllabus. These include live workshops, which will be offered in-centre or online depending on preference. Designed to complement our digital course material, these interactive sessions will take an active learning approach. Students will have covered the topics before attending the workshop so the valuable tutor time can be used to deepen understanding through discussions, practice scenarios and case studies. (These workshops will not be available to students following a digital-only route.)

Tutor touchpoints – course discussions

Another key touchpoint will be the tutor discussions we’ve built into all our courses in Advantage. These online forums will allow students to put syllabus or technical questions directly to tutors at any time and ensure they’re fully supported on their self-study days.

A stronger link between theory and workplace

The new syllabus provides a stronger link between everything students cover in theory through the course material and the day-to-day workplace experience that’s recorded in their logbook. This approach helps embed the theory and leads to more-engaged employees. In addition, our new streamlined logbook competencies have been carefully aligned with the specific technical skills students will need for their career as a CA and to the key enabling skills demanded by the modern workplace.

The details of our new approach

A rolling 3-year terms plan

Our new syllabus will be structured across a rolling 3-year terms plan.

There’ll be four terms per calendar year and, for the Knowledge and Skills levels, each term will be 12 weeks long.

You'll have a long view of your students’ learning journey and the certainty to plan. You’ll also have more control over your students’ progress through the qualification, allowing you to choose when they’re in the office, focused on work and clients, and when they’re given leave to study.

We’ve updated and finalised the draft terms plan we shared previously. The changes, which include running all Knowledge and Skills courses to the same term structure, are based on your feedback and designed to give you and your students a simplified experience.

View the updated terms plan

New learning and assessment schedules

At term level, all courses and assessments also follow a schedule that’s designed to enhance the learner journey and provide the certainty to plan. Some of the features of this new schedule include holding workshops, mock and final summative assessments on set days and set weeks each term, and the addition of a new ‘consolidation week’ at the Knowledge level.

Our schedules show the exact dates for all events in the first full year of the new syllabus (terms 2, 3 and 4 of 2024, and term 1 of 2025). You can also view a consolidated view of the schedule for the remainder of 2025 and for 2026 to see what will be happening each week.

View the schedules

Below you’ll find further explanation of what our new approach and our new schedules mean for each syllabus level.

The Knowledge level - the details

No change in expected days out of the office

Despite the changes we’ve made, the total expected number of days required for everything from self-study to workshops and assessments remains the same as the current syllabus.

This means that students at the Knowledge level with no exemptions will be expected to be out of the office for 45 days for learning only, or 48 days including assessments.

This is identical to expectations for the Test of Competence level of the current syllabus.

The split between Knowledge courses will be as follows:

No change in expected study hours

As with the Test of Competence level of the current syllabus, the Knowledge level of the new syllabus equates to 60 SCQF credit points and an unchanged 600 total study hours.

Choose your own route

In addition to the traditional level-by-level routes through the Knowledge and Skills levels, our new approach has the 'structured flexibility' to choose different routes through the qualification.

For example, students in your tax team could follow our taxation learning route and be fully up to speed in tax sooner than was previously the case, and before they tackled the remainder of the syllabus subjects.

The qualification would still be completed at our Integration level with its multi-disciplinary case study. However, under our new, flexible system, this could be sat in the second, rather than the third year of training.

View examples of alternative routes.

Our recommended course route

It’s anticipated that most employers will choose for their students to complete all five Knowledge-level courses together in the first available term.

In certain circumstances, particularly for students following our school-leaver route, you may wish to select routes through the syllabus according to students’ experience and prior learning. If you’d like help selecting specific routes that best support your students, please get in touch with your usual ICAS contact.

Knowledge prerequisites

Reporting and Performance 1 is a prerequisite for all courses (except Business Law) and must be completed alongside or in advance of any other courses, including Knowledge-levels courses.