RANKINGS SHOW EXAM INEQUALITY

Figures that sparked SQA exam row reveal imbalance

TODAY we can reveal which Glasgow schools were worst affected by this year’s SQA exam results fiasco. A system introduced to ensure pupils were awarded grades after exams were cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis saw those from poorer backgrounds hit hardest by grade adjustments.

Data released by the SQA under Freedom of Information legislation has given figures showing the percentage of pupils at every Scottish school whose grades were marked down, increased and which went from a pass to a fail.

The numbers show that St Paul’s High School faced the largest downgrade of Higher results of any state school in Scotland at 52.4%.

This compares to just 8.7% at Mearns Castle High School, in East Renfrewshire, where only a tiny minority of pupils are from deprived backgrounds.

Our table gives the percentage of exam results adjusted from a pass to a fail; the percentage adjusted up; the percentage adjusted down; and the percentage of senior pupils from SIMD level one – the most deprived postcodes in Scotland.

The final figure is taken from the latest data available on the Scottish Government website while the other numbers were released following an FOI request by Glasgow University education researcher Barry Black, who has published an academic blog post on the results that was then reviewed by the university’s Catherine Lido.

This was the first time in more than 100 years that exams had been cancelled and the SQA developed an alternative system for awarding grades using teacher estimates, which were then moderated using an algorithm.

The moderation system failed to take into account the individual performance of pupils and instead looked at previous overall exam performance of schools. But it soon become clear that young people from poorer backgrounds were suffering most from awards being downgraded.

An outcry led to 75,000 pupils being issued with new grades. The SQA also said it had “no regrets” about the system it had implemented.

After St Paul’s High School, Castlemilk and All Saints secondaries see 47% and 46% of grades adjusted down, respectively. Both schools have very high numbers of pupils from SIMD1.

Glasgow Gaelic School has the lowest figure at 17.3%.

By comparison, the highest level of downgraded awards in leafy East Renfrewshire was at Barrhead High School with 33%.

In East Dunbartonshire this was Kirkintilloch High at 35.5%, but at the other end of the table Lenzie Academy had 13.1%, more comparable with the results from fee- paying schools.

In some cases, grades were adjusted upwards – with King’s Park Secondary seeing nearly 6% of grades increased, the highest in the three council areas we looked at.

Figures produced by Maureen McKenna, Glasgow’s executive director for education, show that even with the SQA moderation downwards, Higher attainment has risen on average across the city this year.

Ms McKenna will present a paper to a council committee tomorrow discussing attainment in schools.

Professor

Numbers show that in 2019, 50.5% of pupils left school with one or more Higher – the SQA equivalent this year was an increase to 53.7% but a drop from the teacher estimate of 58.5%.

For three or more Highers, 26.1% of pupils achieved that benchmark last year and that increased to 27.3% under SQA moderation this year – and would have been 34.2% with teacher estimate.

At five or more Highers the figure for 2019 was 11.9% and increased to 12.1% this year from the SQA moderation but a decrease from the teacher estimate of 16%.

The education boss’s report also details that the 2018/ 19 school leavers had the highest positive destination numbers yet with 94.6% going on to further and higher education, training or work.

But a follow- up survey in March this year showed that had dropped to 90% with the pandemic making following up on pupils and providing one- toone support difficult.

The report says there are already concerns around lack of opportunities for this year’s school leavers and the council is looking at ways to support 2020’ s cohort.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “No pupil in Scotland now has results based on the previous methodology.

“Following the release of results on August 4, the Deputy First Minister announced that all downgraded awards would be withdrawn and directed the SQA to re- issue those awards based solely on teacher or lecturer judgement, or SQA moderated teacher and lecturer estimates where these were higher.

“We accepted that the risk of undermining the value of qualifications was outweighed by a concern that young people, particularly from less advantaged backgrounds, may have been adversely affected.

“We will look to learn lessons from the process to awarding qualifications this year that will help to inform any future actions.

“However, it is still noteworthy that the original SQA results showed a smaller attainment gap than was the position in 2019 and the re- issued results represent a smaller gap still.”

An SQA spokesman said: “We do not believe the methodology here is robust. The overall position shows clearly that local authority schools saw proportionately more upgrades than independent schools through moderation. In local authority schools, 1.85% of entries were moderated upwards and in independent schools, it was 0.79%.

“The Equality Impact Assessment included statistical analysis of available data from 2016 onwards based on the SIMD. It demonstrates that, after moderation, there was an increase in attainment for those learners living in Scotland’s most deprived areas and a narrowing of the attainment gap between those in the most deprived and least deprived SIMD bandings compared with previous years. So what this analysis fails to show is that attainment levels rose and the attainment gap narrowed even after moderation.”