It is “crucial” that teachers and families have “confidence in the marking of all exams”, the EIS teaching union has said after an inquiry was launched into concerns around this year’s Higher history exam.
The concerns - first flagged by Tes Scotland on 13 August - were raised after just 65.7 per cent of students sitting Higher history this year attained an A-C grade, a drop of 13.1 percentage points on 2023.
Now, following a meeting last week with education secretary Jenny Gilruth about the drop, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) says a review is underway of the way Higher history exam papers were marked this year.
It is being carried out by SQA’s head of standards, malpractice and complaints, Margot McKerrell, who the body says had no involvement in the marking of Higher history.
Quick turnaround for Higher history review
The review is expected to conclude this week, with the findings published “to allow full scrutiny”. The SQA says if any issues are uncovered “then action will be taken”.
The EIS, Scotland’s biggest teaching union, has said it is in discussion with its members over concerns about the marking of the Higher history papers this year.
A spokesperson said: “It is crucial that learners, parents and teachers have confidence in the marking of all exams and that valid concerns are investigated by the SQA in a thorough and transparent way. We look forward to the outcome of the SQA investigation before considering next steps.”
When Tes Scotland raised concerns about the pass rate with the SQA in August, it said there was “no change to the approach or standard of the Higher history question papers”, but that there was “a drop in learners’ performance in the question papers”.
However, SQA markers and teachers dispute this. Concerns centre around paper two, which focuses on Scottish history; they say there were changes made to the marking standards this year, with students required to give more detail than in previous years in order to gain full marks.
On average, students sitting paper two in 2024 picked up less than half the available marks (15.2 points out of 36); last year, on average, students got 57.2 per cent for paper two (20.6 points out of 36).
‘They keep moving the goalposts’
One teacher commented in an online forum: “They keep moving the goalposts without telling us.”
Another said: “How can we do the best for our kids (who trust us to get it right for them) when we are not party to crucial info? So unfair on them and us.”
The Higher history grade-boundary decision record - released to Tes Scotland via a freedom of information request - shows that, while question paper one (on British, European and world history) and the assignment “functioned as intended”, question paper two (on Scottish history) was deemed “more demanding”.
The grade-boundary decision record says: “The content sampled made this component more demanding than intended.”
It concludes: “The overall demand of the course assessment was higher than intended so all grade boundaries were set lower than intended.”
In 2024, the grade boundary for attaining a C grade for Higher history was 48.2 per cent, which is lower than the notional grade boundary of 50 per cent for a C grade - but far higher than the 34.5 per cent required to attain a C in 2023.
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