SQA exam results
Following the cancellation of exams by the Scottish Government, local authorities have been working with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to develop an alternative certification model, to ensure the achievements of learners is fully recognised through the qualifications system.
Guidance, entitled ‘Producing Estimates’, was issued to teachers by the SQA on Monday 20 April and schools spent time assessing this guidance and how it could be applied to each subject area.
From Thursday 21 May until Tuesday 26 May, Linda McAulay-Griffiths, Head of Education, held meetings with the Head Teacher of each secondary school, the school’s SQA Coordinator and senior education management to discuss a consistent approach to the development of estimates.
From Tuesday 5 May teachers began to develop estimates of expected results. This process was subject to quality assurance and scrutiny at both school and local authority levels.
On Friday 29 May, schools across East Ayrshire submitted estimate grades to the SQA for all senior phase pupils who have been working towards achieving National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications.
Linda McAulay-Griffiths said: “The deadline for submitting estimate grades for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses was last week and I can confirm that all East Ayrshire schools have submitted estimates to the SQA. Teachers are now focusing on unit results for courses that do not involve examinations, including National 3 and National 4 courses and Scottish Baccalaureate courses.
“The SQA will release results on Tuesday 4 August and I would encourage our young people to sign up to MySQA to receive results by text and email. They will still receive a certificate via the post.
“This has been a challenging time for our young people, their parents and carers and their teachers. I know how hard they work to achieve their full potential and it is important that they still receive recognition for their achievements.
“All estimates have been subjected to rigorous quality assessment and checks and it is now over to the SQA for their consideration. We all have a common goal and that is to ensure that our young peoples’ work is rightly and fairly recognised. I wish our young people all the very best with their results.”
Discussions are ongoing at a national level on whether there will be exams in 2021 and parents and carers will be kept up to date with any developments.