Scotland’s school exams begin against backdrop of dissatisfaction

The School Exams season of Scotland is starting, with more than 132,000 candidates sitting for National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers during the next month.

The last years have seen turbulence in Scottish education with concerns about the fall of the standards and the lack of addressing the achievement gap.

Last year, the Secretary of Education, Jenny Gilruth, said the results “were not good enough.”

Last year’s brands fell to lower levels than before COVID pandemic and international tests have suggested a long -term decrease in Scottish educational achievement.

In addition to that, the gap between the results achieved by the students of the richest and rich school of Scotland is as wide as a decade ago when the government appointed him as a priority.

To address the problem, Mrs. Gilruth has promised an increase in the number of teachers, a greater investment to reduce the time that teachers spend in class, in the reform of the curriculum and an approach in addressing bad behavior in classrooms.

But the plans to reduce the amount of exams that students take have a large extent rejected for now.

This year’s exam season will be very similar to the last ones, with more than two million documents to students in silent school rooms during the next month.

The first exams on Friday are computer science and psychology and the final issue will be religious, moral and philosophical (RMP) studies on May 30.

The 5s national, mainly tasks of S4 students aged 15 or 16, are sacrificed in more than 50 subjects from accounting to Urdu.

The highest, or tasks of between 16 and 18 years in S5 and S6, can sit in a similar range of subjects, while the advanced Highers sacrifice Fower’s options.

The Scottish government hopes that when students obtain their results on Tuesday, August 5, they show a marked improvement last year.

In 2024, the most popular subjects in Higher were English, Mathematics, Physical Education (PE), History and Chemistry.

And the most popular Nat 5 were English, mathematics, mathematics, biology and physical education applications.

For Highers and Nat 5S there were more girls than boys last year.

Teaching experts say this will be the first year of “normal” brand from the Covid pandemic.

What that really means will not be clear until the day of the results.

Duration COVID-19, the exams were canceled for two consecutive years and there was controversy when estimates of teachers, previous courses and the adjustment performance of a school to determine the results were used.

The results in 2020 saw the approval rate for hyghers from 75% to 89%, while the percentage of students reached a degree reached a record the following year.

Since then, the brand has the leg described as “generous.”

In a normal year, the approval rate for each grade, slightly adjusted but the average effect is small. In the years elapsed since the pandemic, the adjustments have been more significant.

Despite the claim of a consistent marking by the SQA last year, its approach to granting in 2024 implied more significant adjustments to the qualification limits of the usual.

Three years ago, in response to several groups about Scottish education, the Scottish government asked Professor Louise Hayward to review the qualifications and evaluation.

His review recommended the end of S4 exams for students who had to continue with a subject beyond that year.

It relieved concerns about the so -called “two -period board” with exams for some on the same topics in S4, S5 and S6.

The review warned that this also results in the teaching to the test instead of offering a broad understanding of subjects.

Gilruth told MSPS that he agreed with the recommendation of the Hayward report that there should be less dependence on the “high -risk final exams”, but last year the Scottish government rejected the proposals.

On the other hand, only a small number of practical issues, such as carpentry and coffee, will launch exams next year and the rest will continue as they were.

Behind the scene the work is underway in the Curriculum Reform cycle, with themes that include mathematics and English already under review.

For some, this is considered a back through the transformation of the historical curriculum for excellence without admitting that it did not achieve what was intended.

Others have applauded work in progress.

In addition to the exams will sit during the next month, many other students will complete the national qualifications 1 to National 4, as well as other courses that are continually evaluated throughout the year.

In total, more than 147,000 candidates are expected to obtain their results on Tuesday, August 5.

There has been controversy about the classification of the exams of the Scotland Qualifications Authority (SQA) in recent years, especially killing the pandemic.

This will be the last year in which the students sat in exams under the SQA before it is replaced at the end of this year by a new organism called Scotland grades, as long as the reforms that cross the Scottish Parliament are not delayed anymore.

However, some have criticized this as a simple Refire, since most staff will continue to be the same.

For those in exam rooms, the approach will be on the paper in front of them and nothing should feel different.

For ministers, policy manufacturers and those who work in the reform of the curriculum, and organizations that establish exams and inspect schools in the period prior to an election next year, the challenge will be to bring an abstelable improvement, or the face is being marked.