The Scottish Qualifications Authority has told MSPs that inaccurate grading from teachers - as well as insufficient evidence - led to seven out of 10 appeals being rejected last year.
The body told the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee that going into the 2022 appeals process, it had expected a high success rate.
The system put in place in 2022 allowed students to appeal their final grade if the estimate from their school was higher, so - as Scottish Qualifications Authority chief executive Fiona Robertson put it - “if there was integrity to the estimate, the appeal should have been successful”.
However, she told the committee yesterday that some students were let down by the poor quality of evidence provided by their schools - as well as inaccurate grading - and that this had ultimately led to only three in 10 appeals being successful.
The SQA said this failure to back up predicted grades with hard evidence was key to its decision to revert to an appeals system this year that focused on whether a candidate’s exam paper had been accurately marked - not on evidence gathered and graded by schools throughout the course of the school year.
SQA exam appeals controversy
Scotland’s biggest teaching union, the EIS, has reacted with anger to the SQA “pointing the finger of blame” at teachers and schools for failed appeals in 2022.
EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley told Tes Scotland that the SQA took the decision to put in place an appeals service based on alternative evidence late in the day, after the 2021-22 school year was underway. She said that at that time schools were grappling with high levels of staff and pupil absence, due to Covid, and had not experienced that kind of appeals system for almost a decade - appeals based on alternative evidence were scrapped in 2014.
Given the late decision on the 2022 appeals system, Ms Bradley said teachers were unlikely to have received any professional development on the requirements.
Ms Bradley said that the SQA - which the government has committed to replacing - was an organisation “fighting for its life” and was intent on promoting a narrative that it is “the only institution that can be trusted when it comes to the veracity of assessment judgements”. But she pointed out that it is teachers who set and mark SQA exams.
Ms Bradley said: “We believe teachers are the experts on assessment. After all, if teacher judgements are so erroneous why does the SQA rely so heavily on teachers in order to be able to operate its services?”
This year - following the exams in the spring - the SQA has come under fire over its decision to reintroduce the so-called “post-results service”. This appeals service allows candidates to have their papers re-marked, but does not allow students who underperform in an exam to appeal their grade on the basis of evidence gathered by their teachers over the course of the school year.
Students who experienced “exceptional circumstances” - such as a bereavement - had that recourse, but if a student failed to achieve the grade they had been told by their school they were on track for, there was no comeback this year.
Secondary headteachers’ organisation School Leaders Scotland (SLS) described the decision as “appalling”, saying it meant that if students underperformed on exam day they had no recourse. SLS argued that because students from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to experience disruption in the build-up to an exam, the changes to appeals flew in the face of the national ambition to narrow the attainment gap.
However, yesterday the SQA hit back when Ms Robertson and director of qualifications Gill Stewart gave evidence on the 2023 exam diet to the parliamentary committee.
They said the SQA had reverted to the post-results service this year because the appeals system had to be fair and that, while some teachers in some schools were gathering the right kind of evidence to support appeals, and grading that evidence accurately, many others were not. They said students in those schools were therefore being unfairly disadvantaged through no fault of their own.
In the wake of results day in 2022, the SQA received over 58,000 appeals, meaning that students and schools took issue with 11 per cent of the grades issued at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher. Approximately 70 per cent of those appeals were unsuccessful.
Ms Robertson said she had expected the success rate to be higher in 2022, but “when we looked at the evidence to support the estimate, both in terms of sufficiency and standard, only three in 10 were successful”.
She said she had faced “difficult” situations where “a learner had an expectation of an award from their school and the evidence did not support that expectation, through no fault of their own, because either they had not been assessed appropriately or that judgement had been made incorrectly”.
Teacher workload had been a consideration when it came to deciding on the approach to appeals this year but “the biggest concern was actually fairness”, says Ms Robertson.
“The reason we did not continue with that appeals process was on the basis of fairness,” she added.
Dr Stewart said that the SQA appointees looking at the evidence presented by schools to support appeals “were really quite disheartened at some of the packages of evidence they saw and how it didn’t back up the estimates that had been made”.
She said that whether or not an appeal was successful “depended on how well the teacher understood the requirements of the course, and the standards and the judgements that they had made” - but that was “not in the hands of the young person”.
Dr Stewart added: “So that’s where the lack of fairness for the learner for us comes in because it was dependent on the school and their understanding.”
Responding to Ms Robertson’s and Dr Stewart’s comments, Ms Bradley said: “The SQA...is swiping at teachers, swiping at schools, really in order to deflect any blame from themselves and, frankly, that is why the SQA’s reputation is in tatters - and irrevocably damaged among teachers and lecturers: because they do not work collegiately with school staff.
“So I’m not surprised by their comments or them not acknowledging that the design of the appeals system has to have been flawed with that kind of outcome, rather than teachers cannot judge or assess performance.
“Also there is self-interest in repeating this mantra that teachers’ professional judgement is not trustworthy. That is part of the tactics the SQA is adopting to save its own skin.”
SLS general secretary Graham Hutton said it was “disappointing” if the SQA was seeing poor-quality evidence to support appeals.
He added: “I think there is a role for SQA to work more closely with teachers to get a better understanding of what the standard is, as they see it. There has been a bit of confusion over the last few years because of all the different ways they have been doing appeals and gathering evidence. That was unavoidable because we were trying to have mitigating approaches which changed to reflect the differing impact of the pandemic.”
SLS has “offered to work with the SQA to try and widen the knowledge and skills of the teachers in knowing what the standard is and how to apply it”.
Tes Scotland asked the SQA what action it was taking to improve the accuracy of teacher judgements and the implications this had for the return of coursework this year.
A spokesperson said it regularly provided teachers with information on best practice for determining estimates, applying the national standard and ensuring the validity and reliability of assessment evidence.
They added: “Our Understanding Standards programme continues to offer subject-specific materials - such as course reports - and events for teachers and lecturers to help strengthen understanding of applying the national standard.
“We also published online estimate guidance, and the Understanding Standards materials that exemplify national standards and provide support on devising valid assessments for each course.
“Practitioners may also wish to consult with their local authority subject network groups for further support.”
