Schools boss wants exam rethink in city
Council education chief calls for change to school judgements
SCOTLAND should consider moving towards a school qualifications system in which teacher judgement supported by “some assessment” has a greater role, according to Glasgow City Council’s executive director of education.
Maureen McKenna said a “big debate” about exams would be required and questioned the current tendency to maintain broadly stable pass rates despite fluctuations arising from differences in ability between pupil cohorts.
“The first debate that needs to be held is around assessment,” she said. “Why do we have a system where everything hinges on that final exam?”
Her remarks come amid anger over the alternative certification model (ACM), which was designed to allow teachers to make decisions about a candidate’s results based on evidence of “demonstrated attainment”.
However, the second lockdown significantly shortened the time available for gathering such information, with many pupils left to endure a treadmill of tests after schools reopened.
Moves toward reform are already under way. This month, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville announced a wide-ranging review of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and standards body Education Scotland.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which will today (Mon) publish a landmark report on Curriculum for Excellence, has also been commissioned to consider assessment processes. Ms McKenna stressed she did not have a “firm view” on what a new arrangement should look like but added: “I think there’s a greater role for teachers’ judgment, and that teachers’ judgment could be based on your knowledge of the young people, backed up by some assessment information. We need a middle ground so it’s not about continuous assessment and lots of tests. It’s about the teacher’s knowledge of the child.
“Because if you’re with that child four or five hours a week, you know them inside out. So you would be able to judge whether it’s an A or a B, and could use some assessments to support that position. But it’s decided by the professional.”
Ms McKenna highlighted how results in previous years contrasted dramatically with teacher estimate-based grades in 2020.
“For National 5 maths, for the previous years up to 2019, regardless of how many people were presented, about 67 or 68 per cent got an A to C,” she said. “In 2020, 80% of those presented got an A to C. Why is that? Are we suggesting that 14% difference is wrong, that those 14% hadn’t got it? Or could it possibly be because SQA norm references the pass mark?
“I’m not suggesting one’s right and one’s wrong. I’m suggesting there’s a question in there to ask about why, all the previous years, the pass rate sat at about 67, 68% and then suddenly, when it went to teachers’ judgment, it went to 80%.”