Roughly one in five students who sat exams this spring in Scotland had some kind of special arrangement in place - which amounts to “a record number of candidates”, according to Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
The two most common alternative assessment arrangements to be put in place for students were extra time to complete question papers and separate accommodation outside the main exam hall.
Separate accommodation is used when students feel uncomfortable taking an exam in the same place as their peers, or so that students who require a scribe or a reader can get that support without their conversations disturbing other candidates.
However, headteachers say that while schools want to make the exams accessible to all students and to give them the best chance of success, it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the growing number of requests, especially when it comes to separate accommodation.
One headteacher said that alternative assessment arrangements were becoming “an entire industry” in their own right, but there were no additional resources to help schools provide the right support - and in some councils, resources were diminishing.
The school leader - who did not wish to be named - said the adaptations were also making assessment throughout the year more challenging, not just during the external exam diet in the spring, and “a national digital solution” was needed.
Meanwhile, Graham Hutton, incoming general secretary of School Leaders Scotland, said it was time to cut back on the number of exams and introduce a wider range of assessment - as recommended in Professor Louise Hayward’s review of qualifications and assessment, published in June.
New figures published by the SQA show that 28,345 learners made one or more requests for special arrangements to be put in place during the exams this year - a rise of 10 per cent on last year and of 41 per cent on 2019, the last time students sat exams prior to the pandemic.
According to the SQA, approximately 140,000 students sat national qualifications this year.
The most common mitigation was extra time to complete the exam, followed by the use of separate accommodation, the use of a word processor with a spellchecker, a reader to read aloud questions and to read back answers, and the use of a digital question paper.
Graham Hutton - who was headteacher of Grove Academy in Broughty Ferry before taking up his new role with SLS to coincide with the early part of the 2023-24 school year - said that schools wanted to ensure students were supported to get the best possible grades and had “fair access to the exams” but “the practicalities cause lots of problems”.
In particular, when it came to providing separate accommodation, Mr Hutton said schools were finding it increasingly difficult to find empty classrooms, offices and small rooms where students could undertake exams outside the main hall.
He said: “If you have National 5 English and you have got 240 candidates and a large number of them can’t be facilitated in a hall, then you’ve got to use other classrooms and you’ve still got your S1, S2 and S3 in school. So it’s getting harder to ensure that the requirements of every young person with additional support needs can be fulfilled.”
He also said that students with additional support needs (ASN) often needed more time to complete question papers but that made exams that were already lengthy “even longer and more stressful”.
Mr Hutton said it was time to cut back on the number of exams and introduce a wider range of assessment, as recommended in Professor Louise Hayward’s review of qualifications and assessment published in June.
“The way forward is as exemplified in the Hayward review,” he said. “We need to look at how we are assessing young people and ask ourselves: does it always have to be a handwritten exam? Are there other ways of assessing young people’s ability?”
Increase in ASN behind rise in adjustment demand
Demand for special arrangements was rising because the number of children with ASN was increasing, said Mr Hutton.
The latest official figures show that a third of students now have at least one ASN and, since the Covid pandemic, there has been widespread agreement that there has been an increase in mental health problems among young people.
Mr Hutton also said that students and their parents had become increasingly aware adjustments could be made and schools and teachers were also now very focused on providing individualised support for students and doing their best “by every young person”.
An SQA spokesperson said that the body was pleased to have been able to accommodate a record number of candidates who required assessment arrangements this year.
Tes Scotland understands that the SQA will also invite schools and colleges, as well as those with ASN and their families, to participate in a research project about their experiences of adaptations in exams, so that improvements can be made.
The spokesperson said: “We will continue to work in partnership with schools and colleges and other centres to improve the service going forward and ensure that learners who have additional support needs are supported and can access examinations and assessments while ensuring that the support provided does not disadvantage them compared with their peers.”
