Teachers and students should not return to school and instantly be faced with “a monster they are not able to deliver” in the form of preparing for next year’s exams, a teaching union general secretary has told Tes Scotland.

Seamus Searson, of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA), is calling for next year’s exams to be cancelled and for the qualifications that students will be awarded to be based on teacher professional judgement.

This year, after the summer’s exams were cancelled because of coronavirus, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has said that teacher estimates will be at the heart of the final grades that students achieve.

However, Mr Searson has argued that this approach should be extended to next year’s exam diet as well. He said this would take the pressure off students and teachers who otherwise would be faced with “a few months to deliver a whole course”.

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The Scottish government has said it is “unlikely” schools will reopen before the summer, and when they do open it has said social distancing will be in place.

Coronavirus: The impact on exams

Last week, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that the easing of the lockdown would not be “a flick of the switch” and that social distancing would be “a fact of life for a long time to come…possibly for the rest of this year, and maybe even beyond”.

She said that could mean pupils attending part-time. On BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, she agreed that pupils could potentially attend on different days or come in for just the morning or afternoon.

According to Mr Searson, the consequence of this is that schools would not be able to deliver the number of hours of teaching required for national qualification courses.

He said: “The SQA is going to have to change the way it delivers exams next year and I am of the view that next year should be the same as this year - the results should be based on teacher judgement. That, to me, is a logical way forward.”

Mr Searson argued that setting the system up that way would also make schools better able to cope if there was a second wave of the virus and another lockdown.

He added: “Within a week or two from starting with a new class the teacher will know who is going to be top and who is going to be bottom in terms of ability. The people who know the pupils best are the teachers and they know who the A-grade students are and who looks like they are on track for a C.

“If we say we are going to have exams that is going to put a lot of pressure on teachers and children and we are going to start the year with this monster we can’t deliver. We need to think of ways to reduce the burden on teachers and pupils, otherwise they are going to have a few months to deliver a whole course and that’s just not going to be possible.”