When the final report of the landmark assessment and qualifications review was published in June, education secretary Jenny Gilruth said the recommendations “could amount to a radical shift in Scottish education”.
However, the chair of the review, Professor Louise Hayward, has this week given a different take. At an event this week, she said of the review: “It’s not radical.”
Professor Louise Hayward said the review had identified three areas “where it’s essential future students are qualified”, reflected in the three elements of the proposed Scottish Diploma of Achievement (SDA).
But none of it was groundbreaking, she stressed - because somebody, somewhere was already doing it. And some of the schools already undertaking the work were in Scotland.
“Many of the ideas in the report are already in place in at least some schools in Scotland and there is no idea in the report that is not in operation in at least one country,” said Professor Hayward at the online seminar “Next steps for qualifications and assessment reform in Scotland”.
In recent weeks, Ms Gilruth has come under fire for failing to take forward the education reform programme set in motion by the Scottish government - both in terms of qualifications reform and the promised reform of key education bodies the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Education Scotland.
Last month, the education directors’ body ADES urged Ms Gilruth to “get Hayward done”; earlier the same month, a primary head told her “to get on with” education reform.
But Ms Gilruth has repeatedly questioned if there is an appetite for change in Scottish education, given challenges such as deteriorating behaviour and concerning school attendance levels.
Appetite for change
However, speaking at the same Scotland Policy Conferences online event as Professor Hayward on Monday, secondary depute headteacher Caroline McFarlane insisted that “there is an appetite for change”.
Ms McFarlane said what there was not an appetite for was “another consultation”, referring to the consultation on the Education Reform Bill launched by Ms Gilruth last month.
Ms McFarlane said: “We have a system that has more than a passing similarity to the system from the Victorian era: the structure of the school day; the chronology of the school year; the idea of sitting examinations in halls for two hours. It’s not what young people are needing just now.”
‘Totally different skillset’
In particular, as a design and technology teacher, she welcomed the assessment review recommendation that a broader range of assessment tools are needed, with less of a focus on external exams.
She said: “For a subject like graphic communication - ie, can you communicate graphically - writing about it for two hours is assessing a totally different skillset. It is not appropriate at all.”
Ms McFarlane said her school was “keen to be implementing” the Scottish Diploma of Achievement and “acknowledging the child as a whole person”, rather than “reducing them down to grades”.
However, not all the speakers backed the review.
Carole Ford - speaking on behalf of the Commission on School Reform, which published a “challenge paper” on school assessment and qualifications in June - argued for “narrow” reform over “wider” reform.
Like Ms Gilruth, she questioned if there was an appetite for radical reform of the qualifications and assessment system. She also said there was no consensus that externally marked exams were “a poorer form of assessment than internally assessed assignments and projects”.
‘Motivating force’ of exams
She argued a switch away from exams would “reinforce, not reduce, disadvantage”; that exams could be “a motiving force” for pupils, and that the workload implications of the SDA were “horrifying” for teachers.
Ms Ford - a former secondary headteacher and Liberal Democrat education spokesperson - said exams were not the issue, rather the problem was “the inordinate amount of time spent on both revision and the exams themselves”.
She suggested that exams needed to become less formulaic to discourage “the dreaded teaching to the test” and “the incentive to practise, practise, practise”.
She also suggested tweaking the assessment calendar, with S4 exams taking place earlier in the school year, before Easter, and S5 and S6 exams delayed until June. This, she said, could free up time for learning and teaching and could be delivered by 2025.
