Scotland’s exam body has become embroiled in a fresh battle with teachers over suggestions that schools are “cheating the system” when it comes to pupils’ coursework, TESS can reveal.

The latest spat between teachers and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) - which many secondary school staff blame for their workload woes - comes just days after the SQA was forced to scrap controversial assessments associated with the new national qualifications.

Now teachers are accusing the body of branding them “cheats” after its director of qualifications development, Gill Stewart, sent an email to schools questioning whether teachers were following the rules around the help they can give pupils with coursework.

In her email, Dr Stewart asked schools to remind staff of “their professional responsibility to adhere to the assessment conditions for coursework” and said that all teachers and lecturers should understand the term “reasonable assistance” after “some evidence” of inconsistency last year.

‘Helping pupils too much’

The email was labelled “grossly insulting” by Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, who said that it essentially accused teachers of “cheating the system”.

“They are either suggesting teachers are helping pupils too much or there is too much leeway in terms of redrafts,” he said.

Some teachers believed the SQA was being “mean-spirited” after its hand had been forced by the government, leading to the axing of unit assessments, Mr Flanagan added.

However, the SQA told TESS that the issue around coursework had already been highlighted in the chief examiner’s report published on results day and the email was “a follow-up sent to heads of centre as part of that ongoing process”.

The SQA’s priority was to ensure equity and fairness for all candidates while, at the same time, ensuring that the standard and credibility of qualifications was maintained, he added.

This is an edited version of an article in the 30 September edition of TESS. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. You can also download the TES Reader app for Android or iOS. TESS magazine is available at all good newsagents.