Highers by another name

[Tealvelvet]

How are you all feeling about this. I’m really concerned as SQA always said there would be assessments and I feel our school were hoping they would be cancelled. Around 2 weeks before the holiday they confirmed they were going ahead leaving very little study time.

I don't really know what you mean by 'highest by another name' ?

Highers got cancelled?

Is it the assessment you are unhappy about?

Maybe I have missed something huge but I can't really work out what you are trying to say

They're assessments and will take account of the current situation. The pupils are currently working in class on revision and answer techniques.

The teachers need some objective evidence to prepare their result submissions. Actual assessment results are the best evidence of all.

Just to add, be not understanding is all my own fault, I'm not getting at you OP.

My own DS dropped out of S6 before Christmas becaue the whole carry on was a simple waste of his time

Sorry mistake ‘highers’ by another name. I feel that these assessments are pretty much highers in class.

I’m not objecting to the assessments but the fact they didn’t pass on the info to our kids till a week or two before Easter. I think kids find it hard to study without a goal so I wish they had said assessments will be April /May subject to cancellation. It’s a lot to come back and sit 3 papers when only been back to school 2 days . I’m concerned they won’t reflect accurately. Just wondered what others thought or how their school handled it.

My daughters school informed all the pupils that class assessments was the plan of action to gain evidence of work. So it’s like a mini exam covering the topics they have studied.

THey were informed before Easter however only given assessment dates this week and assessments will be over the next 2 weeks.

Yes 2pinkgin I feel it is not enough notice. When the highers weee cancelled it stated on sqa that assessments were to be part of the evidence but the schools only communicated this laterally.

The SQA have never said they are cancelled- that's the media doing their thing. They DID say there would be ongoing assessment. These assessments are the same as we would do any other year, execept for the prelim being much later (next week for my DS and also in my own school), culminating in an SQA assessment which will be the very end of May. The difference this year is that the SQA assessment will not be the be all and end all- teachers can use assessment from any part of the year if the pupil has performed better in this, although it must be robust assessment (ie not past papers with published answers that pupils could access).

This is no secret. Schools, including your child's will never have said that assessments are cancelled. If pupils were engaging in remote teaching and live lessons and handing in work there will be no issue sitting an assessment. My DS is sitting 5 Highers and isn't phased by whatever assessments are happening as he just kept working throughout.

The whole 'Our school didn't tell us' is poppycock: schools have been guided by SQA and senior management have to follow systems informing pupils and parents/ carers.

I am on the PA and I can assure you I’m not talking poppycock. Prior to the frontal announcement and dates we were asked what we thought and wether there should be assessments or not. I found this odd as that was always the plan. I think schools have handled things differently for example we have no prelims just exams this week 2 days after return to school. I know
Independent schools have been online teaching consistently we have been blended.

*frontal means formal

I have a daughter in S4 who is doing Nat5s which are not Nat 5s.

Although schools are calling them "assessments", to all the kids they are exams. Sat under exam conditions, Paper 1, Paper 2, supported study sessions.

She had online school only apart from a couple of hours a week until the three weeks before Easter. We only went back to school last Monday 19th, and her first Maths paper is the 26th. She is very concerned about her performance - understandable, when you haven't been in front of a maths teacher for 4 months.

The whole thing is a total fuck-up from the goverment and the SQA as per usual. I really feel for the S5 kids who missed nat 5s last year and are now being put through it again this year.

@Tealvelvet

Sorry mistake ‘highers’ by another name. I feel that these assessments are pretty much highers in class.

That was always going to be the case though? Assessment

There’s quite some distance between class test like assessments on discrete topics and one-off full course ‘assessments’ which are presented and marked like the usual SQA exams. The last is quite a lot to ask of kids who have been working flat out all year trying to get their best grade in every piece of work, dissertation and class topic test - continuous assessment and a full course exam without in many cases having received direct teaching on all the course content is the worst of all possible worlds. Speak to any school guidance team or CAMHS etc personnel and they will tell you that they have record breaking issues with kids buckling under the stress and uncertainty. The impenetrable SQA website and the seemingly contradictory comments made by politicians , schools and others have not helped.

From what our school has communicated (mostly there will be some sort of end of course assessment and we will give you more information when we have it), and all the information that was published on the SQA website, the assessments they are currently sitting are not a surprise at all.

It has always been clear there would be some end of course assessment, supervised in school, of all taught content. We didn't know the detail until just before the Easter holidays but we knew they were coming.

Ours are doing assessments in chunks so they aren't sitting a whole paper at a time. They are having 2 separate periods of assessments too; one in the next couple of weeks and another in June I think

Yes @rainbowthoughts which is the point of my thread that our school and others only formalised to the kids 2 weeks before Easter.

That’s another point I knew because I was able to decipher the SQa babble a lot of people will not have or not even know to look. My DD was categorically not going to take it as read until it was official. I appreciate some schools made this clear but I know of several who did not. Some schools are currently sitting prelim style assessments again differing schools.

It’s nit a level playing field and the attainment gap is now going to be a chasm.

@Tealvelvet

Yes *@rainbowthoughts* which is the point of my thread that our school and others only formalised to the kids 2 weeks before Easter.

About assessment?

@dementedpixie

Ours are doing assessments in chunks so they aren't sitting a whole paper at a time. They are having 2 separate periods of assessments too; one in the next couple of weeks and another in June I think

@dementedpixie That's quite a bit later than our local authority, ds is moving to his S6 timetable on June 3rd. They have their final assessments between 10th-21st May so nothing in June.

SQA and our school timetable says from end of May - Schools, colleges, local authorities and SQA work through final stages of local and national quality assurance and feedback to reach provisional results that are consistent, equitable and fair.

(this is the bit that makes me suspicious there will be some results massaging!)

Deadline for submitting provisional results to SQA is then 25th June.

@WeAllHaveWings, sorry, my dd is doing her advanced highers so won't have another year to move to. Dont know the arrangements for highers

Although the letter we got suggests Nat5, highers and Advanced highers will all have 2 assessment periods so they have the ability to improve on grades that they get in the first assessment period

Wow that is taking it right to the line if they are sitting assessments just 5 working days before the final submission date. Must be well organised if they can mark and agree consistency before submitting.

I'm not saying it's fair- it's not- I'd have been all for all pupils (primary and secondary) repeating a year but the government wouldn't ever do that. (Too many issues in nursery and leaving age at secondary , but that's another thread). What i am saying is that the SQA made it clear, like PP have said, that there would be periods of assessment. We didn't know when until recently, but like PP said, everyone knew they were coming.

I've said this already, but to reiterate: the final assessment for each subject will be THE final exam the pupils would have sat (sent securely to schools) but the results for this are not the be all and end all this year, teachers will use a pupil's best result from all robust assessments sat throughout the year.

E.g If Angus gets 12/20 in his English Critical Essay in the final exam BUT he got 14/20 in his prelim we can use this.

E.g If Sarah gets 36/50 in Chemistry paper 1 in her final exam BUT 42/50 in her end of unit assessment in November we can use this.

Exactly as PP said these are not in the exam hall they are in classrooms and split over various days. E.G My subject is English and the 3 exam papers will be over 3 days, whereas usually it's a 3 hour exam in one day. This is a huge benefit to the kids this year. On Monday I have 1 part of the prelim happening. It's a double teaching period so period 1 they will be able to read over notes/ prepare and period 2 get the question paper and off they go.

I work in an inner city , Glasgow school in a very deprived area. Every lesson for S4 and S5/6 was a live lesson with homework set as usual. I was available via email or Teams at any time for all pupils. This provision was not exclusive to private schools. Kids knew these assessments were coming. They were warned before Easter that it wasn't 2 weeks holiday, they should be revising in the same way they would normally be.

Assessments need to be marked by 9th June latest. We are in trio schools where we assess each other's marking to make sure it is spot on. In schools we are not allowed to mark our own classes and names are omitted. There will be NO massaging of results: teachers will be marking all papers and these grades stand.

Sorry it's so long, just so it's clear.

Well it sounds like you have all been very organised and our school have no prelims and one other local school I know of have also no prelims. The final assessments have already started. The communication hasn’t been great in my opinion. It’s not my teacher bashing it’s been a difficult year for educators and no doubt they have all been pulling out the stops while juggling everything else. I suppose my annoyance is lack of communication to parents and kids. Although as I had read SQa stuff I have been banging on to DD to get to it.

However Puff it’s good to hear someone who is having to do this and the bit about other robust marks as I was worried that my DD had picked that up wrong when advised about a critical essay mark.

Out of interest @Puffalicious how can they stop cheating if everyone sitting at different times ?