What if the SQA's exam appeals system is just a sham?

It’s been a quiet few weeks on the education front, with staff and pupils enjoying a well-earned holiday after another very busy, and very difficult, year.

But we’ve now reached August, which means that attention starts to turn to the new academic year, whether that means buying new uniforms or planning out lessons.

And, of course, it means exam results day is fast approaching.

Obviously, we don’t know what is going to happen with the results themselves until they are released on Tuesday next week.

Will pass rates have gone up or fallen? Will the gap between rich and poor have been narrowed or widened? We’ll have to wait for the answers to those sorts of questions.

But we do know of a few things.

One of them is that this is the first year in which full course assessments have been reintroduced since the pandemic. The SQA made the decision to do this despite significant opposition and argues that doing so is for the benefit of pupils. We’ll presumably find out on Tuesday if that is correct.

We also know that, as some young people celebrate results that meet or even exceed their expectations, others will be faced with a set of National 5, Higher or Advanced Higher grades that fall short of what they hoped for – and what their teachers had predicted.

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For some the gap may be relatively minor, but for others it will be significant enough to alter the trajectory of their entire lives.

Fortunately, we know that there will be an appeals system to support those young people. The SQA website confirms that this service is free, that students can apply to it directly, and that it opens at 9am on results day.

Unfortunately, it’s a sham.

Let me explain.

When you ask people what they think happens for an exam ‘appeal’, you almost invariably get a variation of the same answer: if a pupil’s grade is a lot lower than what was expected, their teacher sends in evidence from throughout the year and, if it is accepted, the grade can be increased.

Which makes sense, because surely an ‘appeal’ means asking for a grade to be reconsidered based on some alternative evidence, because it’s not a fair reflection of a student’s abilities, right?

Wrong.

An SQA appeal doesn’t involve any additional evidence being considered. It is there simply to address any possible “mistake in the marking” of a National 5, Higher or Advanced Higher paper.

Students who submit an appeal will have their marked exam paper reviewed. This means that someone will check that all the questions have been marked, that the marks have been added up properly, and that the correct total has been entered into the SQA system – in short, it’s a quick admin check to make sure that an incredibly stupid mistake hasn’t been made.

It also means that someone will check that ‘the marking is in line with national standards’, but this absolutely, categorically and explicitly does not include an actual remarking of the paper. So long as the awarded marks seem to be about right, that’ll be deemed to be fine.

And that’s it.

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Basically, the current so-called appeals system exists to check that the SQA has been at least passably competent in the handling of an exam paper – it does not offer students the opportunity to actually appeal against the grade they have been awarded on the basis that it is not a fair or accurate reflection of their ability.

The only way that alternative evidence can be considered is if a student qualifies for the Examination Exceptional Circumstances Consideration Service (EECCS), but this is only available in a narrow range of circumstances (which the SQA has never fully laid out) and closes ten working days after the exam takes place. Think of this as the ‘what if someone gets hit by a bus on the way to their exam?’ backup option, but remember that it is of no use whatsoever once the results have been issued, so can’t help anyone who wants to ‘appeal’ the grades they receive next week.

And just to be clear, if you’re sitting there thinking that there used to be a system of submitting evidence-based appeals, then you’d be correct – but the SQA scrapped it years ago.

So what does all of this mean in practice?

Well, let’s say a student has spent an entire year producing A-grade work in a Higher class, having spent the entire year before that producing A-grade work at National 5 level. They’ve completed every task, submitted every piece of homework, met every deadline, and exceeded every single expectation. Their prelims scores were extraordinary, and by the end of the year they were producing material that would do well at university level.

And then, on the day of the exam, something goes wrong.

It’s not an EECCS matter, because nobody has died, or been hit by a bus, or anything like that – a teenager has just had one really bad day after hundreds and hundreds of excellent days.

As a result, they underperform and, even with coursework taken into account, are awarded a C.

This means they’re going to miss out on university places, so they appeal – but the admin checks find that the paper was marked correctly.

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Everybody can see that the C grade isn’t a fair reflection of that student’s ability, but it simply does not matter. All that previous work counts for precisely nothing, because the response from the SQA to this obvious unfairness is: tough luck.

The people running Scottish education – from the officials right up to the education secretary – seem to think that’s all absolutely fine.

But when I speak to people directly and explain it, they usually tell me that the current approach is entirely unjust and should be changed. The SQA has been told the same thing.

What do you think?