THE number of successful exam appeals by school pupils has plummeted after a radical shake-up of the system.

 

This year only 2,172 appeals resulted in an improved mark compared to nearly 32,000 in 2013.

Overall, a total of just 8,500 appeals were made to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) in 2014, down drastically on the 66,000 submitted in 2013.

The reductions come after widespread changes by the SQA to reduce the number of speculative reviews made by schools.

The system was originally intended as a safety net for exceptional cases, but in recent years was widely used to upgrade the marks of pupils who "had a bad day" in the exam, costing the SQA some £750,000 a year.

The SQA has now reintroduced much stricter rules which give pupils the option of either a full marking review or a clerical check to make sure marks have been added up correctly - with schools footing the bill if no changes are made.

Pupils who are facing exceptional circumstances, such as a bereavement, are treated as a priority.

Despite the significant decline in numbers, headteachers and parents said the new system was fairer and made exams a better test of how pupils handled pressure as well as their academic ability.

Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said the figures showed the new system was "working quite well" although she said there was still too much variation between schools.

"The intention was to fundamentally shift the whole business of appeals from what had become an almost automatic appeal to one which requires more careful consideration," she said.

"It needs to be remembered that the new qualifications rely less on exam marks and more on course assessment which will also affect the new scheme and mean that a bad day in the exam hall will have less impact on final scores.

"We know there has been significant variation in the level of review requests from different local authority areas and it will take a few years to bed in."

Ken Cunningham, general secretary of School Leaders' Scotland, which represents secondary headteachers, said the fall had been expected.

"It was the intention to reduce the appeals through a number of different ways and we can see this is what has happened," he said.

"There is now an increased scrutiny across the whole process and a better quality of marking which should reduce the number of errors.

"What these statistics don't tell us is what individual schools across the country have done and we expect there to be variation until it settles in."

However, teaching unions warned that pupils sitting Highers in 2014 had been disadvantaged compared to the previous year.

Most exams have been updated since 2013 with new National 4 and National 5 qualifications replacing Standard Grade, but Highers have stayed the same.

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said: "That means pupils who sat Highers last year had the opportunity to appeal in a way that was not available this year, which will be to the detriment of pupils in 2014.

"It is also a little surprising that some subjects have seen quite a high proportion of upgrades because of marker error when you would expect these to have been picked up as part of the process."

An SQA spokesman said: "The new services provide better support for candidates and reduces the burden on teachers and lecturers, enabling them to concentrate on quality teaching and learning rather than having to focus on generating alternative evidence for potential appeals.

"The new service was designed and developed in consultation and agreement with all parts of the education sector. These approaches are grounded in the principle of fairness to all who engage in the external assessment process."

The figures from the SQA show the highest proportion of successful appeals were concentrated in subjects such as history and English, where some 50 per cent or more of reviews were granted.

The new cost to schools range from £10 for a clerical check to see if the marks have been added up correctly to £39.75 for a full review of the marking. No charges apply if a mistake has been made.