SCOTLAND should consider scrapping the exam diet for National 5s and Highers in 2021 and instead focus on continuous assessment for pupils due to sit school qualifications next year, the country’s largest teaching union has claimed.
This year’s exams, due to take place in May and June, were cancelled in March due to lockdown restrictions. Now Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS), has claimed contingency planning is required to ensure this years pupils do not face the same uncertainty.
He claimed a combination of reduced in-school teaching time and a possible second wave of Covid-19 would impact teachers’ abilities to prepare pupils. Plans for blended learning – which will see Scottish pupils attend school part-time, and do digital learning at home – would mean course content had to be “thinned out”, he said.
Additional pressures could be put on Nat 5 and Higher pupils if a winter resurgence meant a further lockdown was required, possibly interrupting prelims held in January 2021.
“If schools were trying to deliver the 160 hours these courses normally have attached to them there would be no hours left for 1st, 2nd and 3rd years,” he told the Sunday National.
“The second issue is what will be the nature of the assessment. We’re clear from an EIS point of view that we have to proof the accreditation against a second wave of the virus and the exams being cancelled again. This year the exam diet was cancelled at the last minute and we’ll survive that.
“If a second wave meant schools had been shut through winter then that would mean exams couldn’t really happen even if they weren’t cancelled.
“All of that means that the EIS thinks there needs to be a focus of continuous assessment through the year.
“So we are in favour of essentially scrapping the diet and looking at continuous assessment across the year.”
He admitted that additional changes would be challenging to implement, and acknowledged “a fine balance” must be stuck. Continuous assessment could be based around existing units of course work, he added.
“At the moment they are not really there for grading so your most able pupils don’t get more than a pass,” he added. “So there are limits to this. But these are all the things are being discussed.”
Assessment and qualifications is one of ten work streams currently being looked at by sub-committees of the Education Recovery group. All of these are due to report within coming days and weeks.
It follows weeks of controversy over plans by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to base this year’s exam marks on previous grades and teacher estimates.
The organisation has defended the decision, which it insists is rigorous and based on a combination of evidence and professional judgement by teachers. But the Equality and Human Rights Commission has claimed the approach might not be legal and the Scottish Greens have raised deep concerns.
A spokesman for the SQA confirmed that it was part of the Scottish Government’s Education Recovery Group along with the EIS, and “is looking at and monitoring a wide a range of issues, including qualifications”.
“The Strategic Framework for Re-Opening Schools, Early Learning and Childcare Provision, published this week by the Scottish Government, made clear that planning for the 2021 examination diet is underway and will continue.
“The Scottish Qualifications Authority will provide further advice to schools to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to capture, on an ongoing basis, the learning outcomes met by young people in the Senior Phase in school year 2020/21. This will provide a strong evidence base to support assessment and certification.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said planning for the 2021 exam diet “is underway, and will continue”. He added: “The SQA will provide further advice to schools to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to capture, on an ongoing basis, the learning outcomes met by young people in the Senior Phase in school year 2020/21. This will provide a strong evidence base to support assessment and certification."
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