Amid all the uncertainty, the recent Stobart report for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) gives us some hope that changes to our examination system could be an opportunity to effect real change in how we assess our young people.

The stark contrast between the memorisation and recall-focused UK examinations with the much more holistic approach of other, comparable countries makes for interesting reading. It seems redundant, in a world where factual data is always at our fingertips, to continue to depend upon an assessment strategy that rewards memory and regurgitation, rather than critical thinking, collaboration and initiative.

However, assessing and quantifying these skills requires a significant cultural change for pupils, families and teachers. The Covid pandemic has taught us painful lessons about our own confidence in applying professional judgement, and about the need for that judgement to be much more highly respected and valued by society.

If we can make those cultural changes, however, we will reap the rewards of a meaningful, fair and equitable system of assessment, because, ultimately, the teacher is best placed to make informed and fair judgements about pupils’ attainment.

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We have also learned valuable lessons in the past 18 months about our use of digital technologies in both teaching and assessment, and this is an area that we cannot continue to underfund and ignore, as it offers a wealth of possibilities to provide greater access to opportunities for our young people. It also significantly expands our options in terms of how we assess pupils, moving the focus away from the exam hall to relevant and continuous forms of assessment.

We also need to carefully consider our assessment methodologies. Stobart provides a number of examples of assessment strategies in other countries and, while there will never be a perfect solution, the report’s recommendations seem, on the whole, eminently sensible.

Moving away from limiting final exams in a woefully small number of subjects in S4, in order to apply a leaving certificate, seems like a much more coherent approach to a curriculum that, until the end of S3, prioritises breadth and depth.

The report also seems to privilege a baccalaureate system and, again, if we are comfortable with Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence - and that is a big “if” - then a baccalaureate system would certainly be the obvious outcome for that approach.

It is notable that the report praises Curriculum for Excellence, calling it “a pioneering example of 21st-century curriculum reform” and, perhaps, for all its failings, it is just that: an attempt to establish a more relevant and challenging curriculum that has, thus far, been thwarted by the outdated and restrictive examination system that is its culmination.

It will be interesting to see what changes as a result of this report and, of course, there is a danger that a nationalist agenda may influence the process so that it focuses more on establishing difference from the rest of the UK than on implementing what is best for our pupils.

However, the focus on fairness, the importance of teachers’ professional judgement, as well as the increasing use of digital technologies and the rising value of vocational qualifications, provides some hope that we will build a system that genuinely prepares our young people for the future.

Claire Cowie is a deputy headteacher at Robert Gordon’s College, an independent school in Aberdeen