Dear First Minister, I go to your old school..
Pupil appeals to Nicola Sturgeon urging her to end exams misery
A pupil at Nicola Sturgeon’s former school has made a personal plea to the First Minister to sort out Scotland’s exam results fiasco.
Sixth-year pupil Nicole Tait attends the Ayrshire school Ms Sturgeon credits with helping her reach the top of Scottish politics.
But Nicole fears that her and her classmates’ futures may have been jeopardised by how their grades were assessed by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
The SQA downgraded nearly a quarter of all the recommended results for pupils, rejecting 124,000 submissions made by teachers. Data showed pupils from deprived areas were far more likely to see their higher grades lowered than those from the richest parts of Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon attended Greenwood Academy in Dreghorn, near Irvine, in North Ayrshire, which is ranked as the fifth most deprived council area in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.
In the letter, Nicole, 16, wrote: “Young people should not have their futures limited by where they live or where they go to school as you have proved. What chance do any of us have if we are graded on where we live and not what we can do?”
Ms Sturgeon attended Greenwood Academy in the ’80s, before going on to study law, working as a lawyer and then entering politics.
In 2015, she said: “My priority for my time as First Minister is that every young person gets the same advantage I did when I was growing up in Ayrshire. They should know that if they have the talent and they work hard enough they should be able to fulfil their potential, they should be able to achieve their dreams, that there is nothing in their background or family circumstances that will hold them back.”
Nicole received two Cs in her Highers and two Ds in National 5s, but based on coursework and prelims believes her grades should have been higher.
She said: “I just felt so angry that after all the hard work I had put in I received grades like that.
“The SQA should stick with the grades given by the teachers. They know how hard we work.”
Nicole, who hopes to become a forensic scientist, said: “I need three Bs and one C to go to university, and will have to either work a lot harder next year at school, even though I worked extremely hard this year, or I will have to go college the year after.”
Fellow pupil Ellie Little, also 16, received one B, one C and two Ds in her Highers and an A for a National 5.
Ellie received a C in sociology but expected at least a B after receiving an A in a test pupils were told to treat as a prelim.
She said: “Sociology is the one I’m really annoyed about because I received a conditional offer from college to study social sciences. I needed a B in Higher English, which I got, and a B in sociology, but got a C.
“Nicola Sturgeon has made it. There could be lots of other people in our school who have the potential to do the same, but have been held back because of their results.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
“The First Minister understands why pupils like Nicole feel so strongly – and it’s essential that any pupil who feels they have been treated unfairly talks to their school about the free appeals process.”