“We waited for something that we do as part of our teaching.”
This quote from a secondary teacher sums up why there was such uproar when the Scottish Qualifications Authority (accidentally) started publishing its revision support materials on Monday evening.
On social media, it seemed that teachers could hardly find the words to express their disgust and disappointment with one aspect of this support: the study guides. These have been branded “patronising” and “embarrassing” by teachers, who say they contain nothing of use and will only help students if they “haven’t listened to a word their teacher has said all year”.
To understand the strength of feeling, it’s important to remember what the impetus was for the additional support. It came about because the SQA and the Scottish government decided that the impact of Covid-19 on education had become so significant that it was time to invoke “Scenario 2” - the contingency that schools had been told would see more changes made to courses and assessment if Covid caused further disruption. The other contingency was cancelling exams, an option that was supported by many who work in Scottish schools.
The move to Scenario 2 was made because of high rates of absence - Tes Scotland revealed in January that over half of secondary pupils had been off at some point this school year because of Covid-19.
But the issue, of course, was not just that students were missing school - it was that staff were, too.
When schools started to return following the Christmas break, there was huge uncertainty about whether they would even have enough teachers to be able to open. It was expected that staff absence would be high as a result of the huge surge in Covid cases caused by the Omicron variant and increased social mixing over the festive period.
When the new term got underway the vast majority of schools were able to welcome their pupils back. But at that time Jon Reid, head of Larbert High in Falkirk and president of School Leaders Scotland, warned that an understanding needed to be developed that “schools are open but it is not business as usual”.
In some schools, year groups had to be sent home. In others, classes were brought together in large spaces such as dining halls and gyms so that they could be taught en masse.
During this period, Covid-related absence was at its most acute, but it has been an ever-present issue this year.
Douglas Hutchison, Glasgow’s new director of education, attempted to explain the impact of that. It was not just that individual teachers had been off, he told the Scottish Parliament’s Education Children and Young People Committee in January - it was the “knock-on effect” this had.
It wasn’t just the absent teacher’s pupils that suffered, but their absence also detracted from the work that their colleagues were able to get through because they had to cover classes or set work. Ultimately, “the quality of learning and teaching is impacted,” said Mr Hutchison.
So when the SQA and the Scottish government finally said at the beginning of February that Scenario 2 was being invoked, there was a collective sigh of relief. All of this muddling through and covering for absent colleagues was going to be acknowledged and compensated for, it seemed.
The SQA’s chief executive, Fiona Robertson, described the support package being put in place as “substantial”. And, in some subjects at some levels, teachers have welcomed what has been put in place. At Advanced Higher English, for example, students will now be allowed to take into the exam an A4 page of notes, therefore removing the pressure to memorise quotes.
A maths teacher, meanwhile, said the additional support for National 5 maths candidates was “not total nonsense and serves some small purpose”.
But for National 5 and Higher maths, the support promised was “advance notice of further content that will not be assessed”. For subjects such as geography, art and design, chemistry, computing, engineering science, history, health and food technology, modern studies, physics and RMPS (religious, moral and philosophical studies) the additional support offered for National 5 and Higher has been the SQA’s now somewhat notorious study guides.
Study guides: ‘Basic information disguised as additional help’
One Twitter thread pulled together some of the most-ridiculed quotes from the study guides: “Think before you start writing” (Higher Classics); “Make sure you answer the question asked in the exam” (Advanced Higher modern studies); “It’s always a good idea to spell words correctly” (Higher physics and chemistry).
In a briefing for journalists yesterday, the SQA said that advice such as “read the question carefully” may seem obvious, but that students still made these mistakes. They also stressed that this latest support had to be looked at in the round, and that modifications to courses and assessment had also been made at the start of the school year.
Students, they said, were welcoming the study guides and having exam hints and tips in one place.
But it would seem not for Alyssa Evans, the MSYP for Falkirk West. She described the support as “ridiculous” as it contained “information we have known for months”.
She added: “Trying to disguise basic information about subjects as additional help is insulting to both teachers and students alike. This is not adequate help for students, and it’s ridiculous to pretend it is.”
The children’s commissioner, Bruce Adamson, apparently agrees. He said in a statement issued late yesterday that he is “hugely concerned” to see the revision support from the SQA “fails to meet the needs and expectations of young people and the teaching staff who support them”.
He is calling for “significant extra support” to compensate for years of disruption.
Teachers and pupils students waited patiently for extra study support, but once again they feel let down by the SQA.
Now, with the leaking today of Professor Ken Muir’s report into the replacement of the SQA and the reform of Education Scotland, the government will try to swat away criticism by talking about the future and its plans for a new education agency. Provisionally called Qualifications Scotland, Muir recommends that it should include more representation from those it serves, such as learners and teachers.
But while there may yet be hope that the series of debacles the SQA has presided over will lead to a brighter future, what happens this year still matters and will have potentially lifelong consequences for young people.
The immediate priority for teachers is the students sitting in front of them right now. They must also be the government’s priority - and it cannot be allowed to forget that.
