With exams cancelled for all Scottish pupils next year, teachers are likely to be submitting their grades in less than six months.
Questions are now being asked about whether there is enough time to robustly assess pupils’ performance to ensure they get the results they deserve?
Education Secretary John Swinney called off National 5 exams for S4 pupils back in October, and indicated it could be February before he decided whether Highers and Advanced Highers would definitely go ahead.
Under mounting pressure to give clarity to pupils, teachers and parents, he made the call on Tuesday that all exams are off, for fairness to those youngsters who have missed more teaching time due to the pandemic.
Head teacher Ruth McFarlane welcomed news that there will be no examinations next year for Highers and Advanced Highers as well as National 5s.
At her Dunfermline school, Queen Anne High School, senior pupils are amid a block of formal assessment.
But she said schools need more time to ensure youngsters’ performance is assessed robustly.
Ms McFarlane said: “The cancellation of the Higher and Advanced Higher examinations really was the only way forward due to the inequity of learning experience for young people across the country.”
She highlighted assurances that awards would be based on evidence of pupils’ attainment and not schools’ records, with “no algorithm” used.
She said: “Therefore, to maintain the integrity of the national qualifications’ rigorous moderation and verification of this assessment evidence is required.
It is essential that schools are provided with additional time to support this process.”
Ruth McFarlane, head teacher of Queen Anne High School
“The expectation from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Qualifications Authority is that teachers will complete the moderation and verification processes, supported by education authorities.
“Time will be required to enable this.
“Currently schools across Scotland are not aware of any decisions to create additional time to ensure that the moderation of assessment evidence is robust and consistent across schools in Scotland.
“It is essential that schools are provided with additional time to support this process.”
Parent forum
Time is also a concern of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, following what it described as a pragmatic decision by the Scottish Government.
It said it hopes that with exams cancelled before Christmas teachers will be able to ensure pupils get the results they deserve.
A survey conducted by the group found that half of parents of young people working towards Highers and Advanced Highers wanted the exams cancelled. Three-quarters wanted this done before the Christmas holidays.
A statement issued by the forum’s vice chairman Barrie Sheppard said: “We feel that this is a pragmatic approach to a fair and equitable outcome for all senior phase pupils.
We hope this timeous decision will enable pupils, teachers and the SQA to have adequate time and resources to achieve the results that are deserved and will be a key to opening up further opportunities for the young people.”
National Parent Forum of Scotland
“We know from our correspondence with parents and carers across the country that our young people are encountering difficult circumstances in their day-to-day learning, with self-isolation of both pupils and staff impacting their health and wellbeing at this critical time in their lives.
“We hope this timeous decision will enable pupils, teachers and the SQA to have adequate time and resources to achieve the results that are deserved and will be a key to opening up further opportunities for the young people.
“Positive destinations are vitally important to all young people and we understand that this is a challenge at any time, not least during the Covid pandemic.”
Survey
Survey findings, published at the end of November, made it clear there was strong confidence among parents in the judgement of teachers to predict grades, the forum said.
Some 83% of the 5,000 respondents said they were very or moderately confident in teachers’ judgement to predict Higher and Advanced Higher grades with exams cancelled.
Results
Results for Higher, Advanced Higher and National 5 candidates will be delivered by post, email and text on August 10, next year.
The process for determining Higher and Advanced Higher results is expected to follow the quality assurance model published on Tuesday for National 5s.
Under this model, schools and colleges will be expected to submit provisional results by May 28 for checking by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Pace
The need for a similar but more flexible approach to be produced timeously for Highers and Advanced Highers was acknowledged by SQA chief executive Fiona Robertson.
She said the qualifications authority would “work through the finer details of this approach at pace, to provide clarity and certainty to the system”.
In-service days
Mr Swinney said the quality assurance model for delivering results was already in place, and would be adopted for Highers and Advanced Highers.
In his statement to parliament, he said: “I would ask that secondary schools prioritise all remaining in-service day time to work together on this alternative model of certification for national qualifications.
“Many schools still have two or three of the five annual in-service days left.”