Higher aspirations

Not for the first time, the Higher English examination is under scrutiny. As The Herald reveals today, the Headteachers' Association of Scotland (Has), has launched an investigation into discrepancies between grades awarded to candidates in the prelim and the award secured in the final exam. The association, which represents secondary heads, was prompted to act after anecdotal evidence of "surprising" differences between a candidate's predicted grade (based on performance in the prelim) and actual award given. Concern has been expressed in the past two years about pupils doing less well than predicted, sometimes markedly so. In some cases performance was better than expected.