Parents hit out at exams
Forum claims pupils treated like guinea pigs and workload too high
PUPILS who sat new Scottish school exams were treated like “guinea pigs” with too much stress and a high workload, according to their parents.
The young people had also suffered from constant internal evaluations and uncertainty over curriculum content with one parent remarking: “It really feels like death by assessment.”
The accusation was made at an event to look at the impact of new National and Higher exams, organised by the National Parent Forum of Scotland and attended by families from across the west of Scotland.
There was also concern that sample materials provided by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) did not match the exams.
One parent said: “I feel really devastated about my son’s experience. He’s a real guinea pig. How many kids have been put off education completely?”
The concerns, which have been detailed in a report of the event by research company Rocket Science UK, came after the SQA introduced a raft of new exams and assessments as part of the roll-out of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) reforms.
Under the changes, Standard Grades were replaced with National 4 and National 5 exams last year and Highers were revised this summer to reflect the changing content of the curriculum.
However, parents said the rollout of the new qualifications could have b e en h a nd le d more effectively.
The report states: “Parents were very concerned about children.... being guinea pigs, with the potential for long-term impacts on their career prospects and confidence.
“Many parents were concerned about the level of stress their children were under, particularly in S4 which was exacerbated by some teachers under extreme stress passing it on to their pupils.
“Stress on both pupils and teachers in these transition years seems to be the result of both high workloads, constant rolling assessments and uncertainty about the new syllabus for each subject and new qualifications.”
The report concluded that there was a widespread feeling that pupils sitting the new Highers had not been adequately prepared for the style of questions in some papers – including a controversial maths Higher paper.
Thousands of candidates have already signed online petitions venting their anger at the SQA over the difficulty of the maths paper and parents at the forum event called for a review to ensure issues were not repeated next year.
A spokesman for the SQA said the implementation of the new National qualifications was agreed with all parts of the Scottish education system, including teachers, schools, Education Scotland, Scottish Government, local authorities and parent bodies.
He added: “We have always listened very carefully to feedback from teachers, parents and students and we provide a detailed programme of support.
“If we believe candidates have found questions more or less challenging than we anticipated, then we will make allowances for this when we set the grade boundaries.”