National external exams returned to Scotland this summer after a three-year hiatus caused by Covid.
Last week the results of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams were released, along with a whole host of SQA data.
There was much to be picked over but most of the headlines in the media focused on an attainment gap that - while narrower than in the last pre-Covid year of exams, 2019 - was wider than in 2020 and 2021, when there were no national exams.
Strikingly, Tes Scotland heard from teachers with some very different reactions to results day. While some were delighted by the return of exams, others were left distraught by results for their students that fell well below expectations.
We asked two secondary teachers to write about their contrasting experiences. Ultimately, both were disappointed by the results ascribed to their students. The difference was in whether they felt it was their 2021 or 2022 students who had been badly let down by the qualifications system that was in place that year.
The teacher pleased about this year’s SQA results: ‘I am ecstatic that exams are back’
Results day is a stressful time of year. Students and parents up and down the country wait nervously for the 8am text or the postie to come with the letters that show how well the exams went. Teachers stay up late stressing about whether there’s more we could have done, if there are any lessons we could have delivered in a better and more engaging manner or if there were any morsels of advice we forgot to give out.
This was the first time in three years that I didn’t know what my students were being awarded. I had their test results, their prelim results, I had evidence gathered for urgent appeals in case anyone didn’t make the grade.
Then, at 8.03am on Tuesday 9 August, the school email chimed. Now, I had access to all my students’ results, and I was stunned, paralysed in shock and disappointment - but not for this year’s students.
This year our students performed resoundingly well. Instead of 30 per cent getting As at National 5, 50 per cent got As. In fact, most of our As were A1s (meaning they scored 80 per cent or more). In two years, I hadn’t seen an A1 at all. In Advanced Higher, every student passed. Is that because they did particularly well? Probably not. For a C in Advanced Higher you needed just 40 per cent this year.
So why, amid the satisfaction about the results of my students this year, did I feel a stirring of disappointment for students who took qualifications in 2020 and 2021, when, for the first time in more than a century, national exams were not run?
The SQA had insisted last year on the use of “notional cut-offs”: 70 per cent for an A, 60 per cent for a B, 50 per cent for a C, 40 per cent for a D. We obliged and our results were noticeably lower than usual: no A1s, fewer As and Bs, more people withdrawing from the course because they were never getting close to the 40 per cent where they get credit.
I feel like those students - the ones I taught, pushed and cajoled to do better and make the cut - lost out. They lost out on grades and university placements and offers because we were restrictive in the way we awarded grades.
Knowing how teachers hate to be told that there was “grade inflation”, I was expecting, with the boundaries so heavily reduced this year, that there would be mass rejoicing. Instead, I see that the grades are down, that teachers are complaining because the SQA made it harder to pass this year. I can’t accept that.
Our students. for the first time in three years, have been assessed fairly against others across the country. And our results went up. If grade inflation wasn’t a systematic problem of the approaches in 2020 and 2021, in the past few years there would have been a similar distribution to last year with some schools doing better, some doing worse, but patterns being broadly similar. That isn’t the case.
Exams are equal for all. They are marked fairly and consistently. Boundaries are put in place that are reflective of the challenge of the paper. When every school did that themselves in 2020, it was chaos, and in 2021 we were told not to edit them. Students failed (with an F!) last year who this year would have had a C (in N5 biology, a C is 37 per cent). Need a B in Advanced Higher chemistry for uni? Last year you needed 60 per cent, this year 52 per cent.
I am devastated by the results this year because they make me feel like I (we) failed our students over the past two years. And that’s the killer. No matter which way the results went this year, teachers are going to be disappointed about it.
The SQA has proven to be devastatingly incompetent throughout Covid. In 2020 it was caught off guard, but it should have moved towards more digitally administrated assessments for 2021. Universities made a near seamless switch to delivering assessments remotely - the SQA should have worked with them and built a model around that set-up.
Some universities had “anti-cheating software”. Some took an approach where assessments were open-book but with a tight time limit. Some of those approaches (if incorporated well) may help as part of assessment methods in the future - and may even help in closing the attainment gap in a less artificial manner than that seen in the past two years.
Instead of a proactive approach being taken to make a sustainable change to assessments, 2021 was a shambles, with schools being handed the power (and the blame). I don’t believe any school deliberately set out to unfairly award students high grades. But teachers are human. We care about the students in our care. We want the best for them. We are biased in their favour. We also have a comparatively narrow scope over which to see the range of ability. A typical cohort in a National 5 subject in a school may be 50 students. By comparison, that subject will have 10,000 entrants nationally. The SQA wanted teachers to do their job with 0.5 per cent of the data. Is it any wonder the results were all over the place?
As a result, many of my students lost out. Those amazing, wonderful, hardworking and high-achieving students lost out on grades and university places. That’s why I am ecstatic that exams are back - meaning that students will be judged fairly and equally, in an impartial manner.
The writer is a science teacher in Scotland
The teacher left distraught by this year’s SQA results: ‘I have never felt more hopeless in my job’
I am heartbroken. After two years of disruption, moving goalposts and incalculable pressures placed on young people and teachers, I have never felt so hopeless in my job.
The third annual SQA fiasco that unfolded on 9 August has left me fundamentally questioning my purpose as a teacher. As I read through my inspiring Higher class’ exam results, my heart sank lower with every grade. It just didn’t make sense. These were students who were, following a robust model of assessment and moderation, predicted to gain As and Bs. Furthermore, the vast majority of them found their exam manageable, having felt ready for the challenge.
Yet on 9 August, my class attained far lower than expected. Some who were predicted to get an A ended up failing after consistently succeeding all year round.
And it wasn’t just my class or even my school. As the hours passed on Tuesday, the pattern became clear: schools in the most deprived areas were experiencing similar outcomes. I am not writing this to examine the data (author James McEnaney’s Twitter feed is a good place for that). I am writing this to hopefully shed light on what this is doing to the mental wellbeing of young people and teachers alike.
After a fairly restful summer, I found myself having to switch off all notifications and go completely offline. I simply couldn’t cope with the numerous messages of confusion and distress from parents and students. It took a long conversation with my therapist that evening for me to feel slightly better about what had happened. My students may not have been so fortunate.
In difficult times, it is natural for young people to look to their teachers for reassurance. I have prided myself, over the past two years, on giving that reassurance. But after 9 August, I don’t know if I can, with any sincerity, tell my new students that they can have a positive outcome this year if they simply try their hardest. This most recent fiasco makes me feel like the Scottish government and the SQA are comfortable with a system that widens the attainment gap.
With my therapist, I have worked hard on having realistic expectations of myself. I know I can’t change the system on my own. Accepting this has been a huge step for my mental health. But with that knowledge, my one comfort has always been the idea that I could help disadvantaged teens succeed within a broken system. Now, I don’t know if that is possible, and I am left feeling almost sick with disappointment.
Yet, I’ll still walk into school in the new school year and do what I can. That said, I am deeply worried about the end result of all of this. If I am not the only teacher who feels this broken system chipping away at their self-esteem, motivation and optimism. Where will we be in a few years’ time? For now, my notifications are staying off and I am doing my best to heal before I face a class again.
The writer is a teacher of English in Scotland
