Aug 2020. School Results in Scotland

August 2020. Children in Scotland received their A-Level results today but the system has been criticised because 96 percent of all grades were lowered. Such is the huge number of adjusted results, MSPs across the country have called for the examining authorities to appear before the Scottish Parliament. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Ms Sturgeon’s Government implemented a national moderations system. Under the system, results were estimated by teachers based on the pupil’s performance over the year but of the 138,000 results, 124,564 were adjusted by the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA). Scottish Greens Education Spokesman and MSP for West Scotland, Ross Greer labelled the move by the SQA as “disturbing”. He said: “Teachers and pupils should not hesitate to appeal these huge changes from the grades they submitted. “I have been contacted by senior staff at schools who have seen over 90 percent of their Higher and Advanced Higher grades changed, almost all lowered and in every one of these cases the school has been in a deprived community. “How can the SQA say the system is based on teacher judgement when in some schools they have ignored almost every professional judgement that teachers have made? “Pupils are having their futures disadvantaged and it seems to be for no other reason than they school they go to. This is frankly disturbing and grossly unequal.” In damning statistics, the lowering of grades has hit those in the most deprived parts of the country the hardest. A table of statistics of the proportion of A to C grades showed those in the most deprived parts of the country had seen their grade estimates reduced by 15.2 percent from 85.1 to 69.9 for their results. In comparison, in the least deprived areas of Scotland there was only a 6.9 percent discrepancy between their estimates and results. As a result of the severe discrepancy, former Scottish Tory leader and MSP for Edinburgh Central, Ruth Davidson highlighted the impact of the results on the poorest children. She said: “A quarter of pupils’ grades changed from teacher recommendations; poorest pupils disadvantaged most; any school without a history of results not changed at all – this looks incoherent and hugely damaging.” Sir Michael Wilshaw, former chief inspector of schools in England and head of Ofsted from 2012 to 2016 stated it was imperative for teachers to help those in the poorest areas.