As we approach SQA results day 2021, it seems timely to reflect on the past year and consider how it went. How did this year compare to “normal” years and what lessons can we learn for the future?

I’m going to start by awarding some grades:

• The effort and determination of teachers to make the 2021 senior phase assessment system work well - A.
• The effort and determination of students to achieve the best grades they can in the most challenging of circumstances - A.
• The success of the 2021 senior phase assessment system - No Award.

The grade I am awarding for the 2021 senior phase assessment system is based on my experience as the headteacher of a state secondary school. It is derived from evidence that has come from what I have seen and heard. However, like any judgement, it is subjective.

Because it is being used to determine a grade, there should be criteria for how it is awarded. And the criteria I am using here are straightforward: A - significantly better than normal; B - better than normal; C - as good as normal; D - poorer than normal; No Award - significantly poorer than normal.

The purpose of the senior phase assessment system

Before we get into a comparison of the 2021 system with ‘normal’ years, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what the purpose of the senior phase assessment system is: to determine the grades students are awarded in particular courses. For students, the purpose of grades is to open doors, for example, to get into particular college or university courses. For staff in charge of admissions, grades are used to differentiate students and help determine who is most suitable for particular courses.

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For this to work, a particular grade (A, B or C) awarded in one school needs to mean the same as that awarded in a different school. Ensuring this is the case is where the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) assessment system has traditionally come in.

What happens in a ‘normal’ year?

In a “normal” year for most courses, the SQA would set standardised examination papers that have gone through a rigorous quality-assurance process. They set the date and conditions under which these papers will be sat, and they employ professional markers who have gone through formal training. They quality-assure the marking process and they set grade boundaries which have also gone through rigorous quality assurance. The system isn’t perfect, but it is fairly good at doing what it is designed to do: awarding students grades that have a shared meaning across the country.

Now, let’s compare some specific aspects of this system with the one we have had in 2020-21.

Standardised papers

Were assessment papers standardised this year? Yes and no. Most schools used the SQA’s 2020 exam paper, which hadn’t been used last year. This was standardised across the country. However, many schools also allowed students to sit at least one additional paper, put together by teachers in the school. Were these standardised across the country? No. Because most teachers hadn’t had formal, SQA-approved training in exam-paper design, most teachers putting these together were relative amateurs. That’s not a criticism of teachers - it’s just a fact. Teachers did the very best job they could and did so whilst carrying out every other aspect of their job and learning to teach remotely. However, the fact is that different students in different schools sat papers on differing demand and quality.

Depending on the school they went to, different students across the country had a different number of opportunities to be awarded a particular grade. For example, in some schools, there were two “assessment windows”, with the SQA’s 2020 paper being sat in one and a school-designed paper sat in the other. The grade awarded could come from either assessment window, depending in which one the student performed best. In other schools, there were three or more assessment windows, meaning that students in these schools had more opportunity to be awarded a particular grade than some students in other schools.

Standardised conditions

Were the conditions under which students sat papers standardised? No. Some students sat papers in one go; for others, papers were split so students sat different parts on different days.

Depending on the school a student went to, assessments in a particular subject were sat at different times. For example, a student in one school might have sat the SQA’s 2020 National 5 English paper at the start of May while another student in another school might have sat it in late May.

The issues with this are two-fold. Firstly, once a paper has been sat, it is no longer secure. Students in one part of the country can communicate with a student in another part and find out about what was included in the paper. Secondly, any student sitting the paper in early May had less preparation time than those sitting it at the end of the month.

In some schools, resits of a particular paper were allowed. In others, they weren’t. The issues with this are obvious.

Grade boundaries

Were grade boundaries standardised? No. While efforts were made within schools and across councils to ensure that a particular score would result in a particular grade for a particular course, there wasn’t standardisation of grade boundaries across the country. A student achieving 67 per cent in a Higher maths paper could have been awarded a grade A in one school and a grade B in another.

Other factors influencing the grade

The issues with standardisation outlined are enough for me to grade the 2021 assessment system “No Award”, and we have barely touched on the issues of teacher workload and student anxiety. There isn’t enough time to go into these now but trust me - they won’t help the grade.

The future

In the coming weeks, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) will publish a paper outlining recommendations for the senior-phase assessment system in future. In considering these, I ask everyone to keep in mind two principles:

1. Standardisation is essential to any national assessment system being used to determine grades for qualifications.
2. An exam system might not be perfect but, compared with the alternatives such as the system we have had this year, its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages.

There is a good case to be made for blending end-of-course exams with modular in-course assessment, so that final grades don’t come down to one paper sat on one day. However, let’s not throw the examinations baby out with the bathwater. As the Pet Shop Boys once sang: “Sometimes, the solution is worse than the problem”. Let’s not forget that, whatever we’ve all been through in this past year.

The writer is a school leader in Scotland