Three successive years of high-stakes, end-of-year exams are to remain a feature of Scottish secondary schools, education secretary Jenny Gilruth has confirmed.
Setting out the Scottish government’s response to the Hayward review of qualifications and assessment - which called for an end to external exams for students in S4 - Ms Gilruth told the Scottish Parliament this afternoon that “examinations will remain part of our overall national approach, and will not be removed from all National 5 courses”.
However, Ms Gilruth also agreed with the report’s recommendation that the balance of assessment methods in upper-secondary school should change to have less reliance on high-stakes final exams.
Bigger role for internal and continuous assessment
She said that “internal and continuous assessment will contribute to a greater percentage of a final grade”, adding: “This will support more young people to successfully evidence their learning - it will also act to increase the resilience of our overall approach to assessment.”
Ms Gilruth added, however, that in some courses an exam might not be needed, and that consultation has started on this in relation to courses such as fashion and technology, practical cookery and practical electronics.
On the proposal that a school leavers’ certificate be introduced - the so-called Scottish Diploma of Achievement (SDA) - Ms Gilruth was supportive of the idea as “a shared longer-term goal for Scottish education”, but “more work is needed to determine its exact content and how it would operate”.
She said if students were to receive recognition for wider achievement as part of the SDA, “we will need to work through significant concerns which have been raised - mainly that such a step would further entrench and exacerbate social inequity”.
Ms Gilruth also said:
- The government would explore “how modularisation of graded national courses can be reintroduced, so that pupils have maximum flexibility to build credit as they progress”; it would learn from “past experience with unit assessments and associated issues around teacher workload”.
- The senior phase had become “overly complex” and “a degree of rationalisation” was needed “to ensure clearer, pathways, which are less confusing for young people”.
- A systematic approach to ensuring the curriculum in Scotland remains relevant was already underway through the “curriculum improvement cycle”, beginning with maths and numeracy; this would be “underpinned by teacher expertise” and subject specialists would “lead on improving and updating Scotland’s curriculum”.
- The government “cannot reform our education system without giving teachers more time”; the government remained “fully committed” to cutting weekly class-contact time by 90 minutes, and urged the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers “to move at pace”.
- A new improvement plan would be published “in the coming months” setting out “the short-, medium- and longer-term priorities for Scottish education”.
- A national working group on interdisciplinary learning would be set up and chaired by a senior secondary school leader.
- An experienced secondary head would “be seconded into the [new] qualifications body, to lead a new chapter of meaningful engagement with Scotland’s teachers”.
- The government has launched a CivTech Challenge inviting bids to reduce teacher workload by using artificial intelligence (AI).
The EIS teaching union gave a ”cautious welcome” to today’s statement, but general secretary Andrea Bradley said it “stops short of being the clear and committed response to the significant recommendations of the Hayward review that the EIS had hoped for”.
SSTA welcomes retention of N5 exams
Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) general secretary Seamus Searson welcomed Ms Gilruth’s statement, as it “maps a way forward in making the cultural changes required in secondary schools”.
He said: “Many SSTA members will be pleased to hear there will be an element of external assessment at National 5 in the short-term and that any future developments will be trialled and piloted before implementation.”
Education director’s body ADES welcomed the announcement that “some elements” of the Hayward review were being taken forward, but “we had hoped for a longer-term view of the senior phase”.
ADES also said: ”The education system in Scotland does not currently meet the needs of all our young people, particularly in the senior phase. A high-stakes exam system across S4-S6 is driving the curriculum in ways that disadvantage some young people.”
Children and young people’s commissioner Nicola Killean described today’s announcement as “little more than tentative steps”, adding that full implementation of Hayward “would reduce the harmful pressure” placed on students by the assessment and qualifications system.
A release from the commissioner’s office also included statements from report author Professor Louise Hayward herself, as well as the authors of two other important recent reports on Scottish education, Angela Morgan and Professor Ken Muir.
Professor Hayward recalled that most students she had consulted “were calling for change” and had reflected a senior-phase experience “dominated by preparation for exams, past papers, prelims, memorising chunks of text or prepared answers” .
She also said that, during her review, “AI in the form of Chat GPT emerged, demonstrating how quickly the world is changing and this week OpenAI has emerged - AI capable of reasoning”, adding: “There can be no more urgent priority than ensuring that Scotland’s young people are qualified for the future.”
Exams make some ‘feel like failures’
Ms Morgan, chair of the 2020 additional support for learning review, said: “Scotland’s focus on exams and qualifications as sole indicators of success is damaging to children and young people whose learning needs and style are different, making them and the dedicated professionals who work with them feel like failures.”
Professor Muir said the Hayward recommendations must lead to “much greater emphasis on listening to, and acting on, the voices of children and young people” .
Conservative education spokesperson Liam Kerr accused Ms Gilruth of taking “a piecemeal, rather than a visionary approach” and questioned where the money would come from to pay for reduced teacher class-contact time.
He said when the government abandoned its pledge of universal free school meals in primary schools, it referenced “lack of money”. He asked how much today’s plans would cost and “from where will the sum be drawn?”
‘No budget to implement Hayward in full’
Later in today’s debate, Ms Gilruth said: “I could come to the chamber today and accept all the recommendations, but I don’t have a budget to resource it.”
Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy said the statement on Hayward was “not the bold vision for education that experts are calling for”.
It’s Our Future: Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment - the formal title of the Hayward report - was published over a year ago, on 22 June 2023.
Hopes had been high among many that the report would harness the impetus for reform that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in the 15 months since it was published, amid several delays in the government response, there has been increasing criticism of the government’s lack of action.
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