Tuesday 4 August will be a results day without precedent. A mixture of joy, deflation, upset, frustration and relief accompanies any round of certification awards, but this year the context for such feelings will be results derived from teacher estimates, based on professional judgement.
How will different parties react? In truth, that will depend to a very large extent on how the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has processed those professional judgements. Teachers across the country agonised over determining estimates, knowing full well how critical their voice would be in deciding the fate of their pupils. If those gradings have by and large been upheld by the SQA, teachers will be confident in the judgements they made.
Unlike other years where a numerical check or a re-mark are the only options for disappointed candidates, this time SQA will be running an evidence-based appeals system. As the material for such an appeal will be the same as that used in making the original judgement, there may be little to be gained in pursuing that particular route.
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If, however, the SQA’s statistical moderation of teacher estimates skewers outcomes and leaves teachers, pupils and parents feeling that justice has not been delivered for students, the system may well drown beneath an appeals tsunami, which will leave everyone feeling frustrated.
The SQA’s unwillingness, or inability, to engage local authorities in pre-results dialogue over issues of concern and its refusal to advance publish the methodology deployed, has left it somewhat isolated and a little friendless.
SQA’s raison d’être is to serve the needs of Scottish education and the students within our system, be they at school or college, or even in the workplace - it is not the other way round.
Schools, and subject departments within schools, will be more than able to discuss with individual pupils the basis for their original estimates. They should hardly come as a surprise to pupils given that prelim marks and marked assignments will have been the core evidence. Every parent who attended their child’s last parent evening will have been given an indication of the direction of travel, so while there may be some disgruntlement at the absence of an exam opportunity to “pull it off on the day” (not really a sound measure of learning acquisition, in any case), the real concern will be where both teacher and pupil are at a loss to understand the grade awarded by the SQA.
In that scenario, it will be over to Scotland’s assessment body to offer the required explanation.
I sincerely hope that is not the case. Scottish education needs a robust awards system that carries the confidence of everyone in the system. Students deserve to feel satisfied with the recognition of their achievements and the credibility of their awards in broader society and that should be their experience next week
Without doubt, this year’s Covid-dominated experience has shown that some significant changes are needed in how we assess student progress and recognise achievement; let’s hope that awards day 2020 lays down some significant pointers for us on that issue.
Larry Flanagan is general secretary of the EIS, Scotland’s biggest teaching union
*Tes Scotland will be live blogging throughout SQA results day 2020, on Tuesday 4 August. To find our coverage go to the Scotland hub of the Tes website.
