The Scotsman Bulletin Monday July 29 2024 #Exams

The Scotsman

Scotsman head of news Dale Miller speaks to our education correspondent Calum Ross ahead of exam results for Scottish students

Transcript

00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Monday. My name is Dale

00:12Miller. I'm Head of News at the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Education Correspondent

00:17Callum Ross. Callum, we're going to talk about the front page of the Scotsman firstly, and

00:22it's your exclusive on the front. Over to you. It's a really significant update around

00:28exams and a trend that's continued over the past 12 months. That's right, Dale. I mean,

00:35it was just last week, wasn't it, that me and you were speaking on here about the big

00:39rise in the number of pupils with additional support needs and how it could lead to changes

00:45to the way schools are designed in Scotland. Kind of move away from sort of open plan buildings

00:52and super schools. Now today, we've been reporting how the trend is putting schools

00:58under pressure in terms of exams around exams time. The figures show a 40% increase in the

01:06number of pupils requiring special arrangements for exams. That's between 2019 and last year,

01:15and the feeling is that it's likely to have increased again this year. So that's the actual

01:20figures. That's up from just over 20,000 pupils in 2019 before the pandemic to more than 28,000

01:29pupils last year. Now special arrangements, things like separate rooms for exams, extra time,

01:36you know, supervised rest periods, breaks, things like that. And what has also emerged in the

01:43figures, this is from a Freedom of Information request we put in, there's been a big increase

01:48in the requirement for invigilators to oversee these exams. Now that's probably linked to the

01:55need for more separate rooms and more supervised rests and things like that, but the number of

02:01invigilators is up 20% since 2019, and the cost of hiring them is up by over half, 52% to 4.8

02:12million, and that figure's probably likely to rise as well. And that's possibly, I mean,

02:19not being confirmed, but it's possibly linked to the idea that maybe there's a bit of a shortage

02:25of invigilators too, and they're maybe having to spend a bit more money hiring them. But from

02:30speaking to experts, it seems to be that one of the things driving this has been a big sort of

02:35increase in anxiety among pupils, particularly since the pandemic.

02:42So Callum, these are really significant numbers. I mean, we heard some comments, you know,

02:49doing the rounds that the number of invigilators had gone up, but the size of the rise and the

02:56need to make special arrangements for a lot more pupils, you know, there's a clear trend here. And

03:03do you expect that this trend will actually continue and grow with anything?

03:08Yeah, that's, I mean, I spoke to Graeme Hutton, you know, General Secretary of School Leaders

03:14Scotland, who represents kind of headteachers and deputy headteachers, and he certainly thought that

03:21was the way it's going, it's going to continue increasing. And this has played in, if people

03:26are able to read the piece today, you know, you see that it's kind of reignited the debate about

03:31the future of exams and whether we have too many exams in Scotland or proposals to get rid of

03:37exams at National 5, S4 sort of level. They've been on the government, Jenny Gilruth's desk,

03:44the Education Secretary's desk for over a year now, and we've still not got a decision. So

03:49I think that'll come fairly soon. But there's definitely going to be sort of greater kind of

03:55question marks around this year's exam results and what the future of exams in Scotland is.

04:02And Calum, looking ahead to next week, August the 6th, I think it's Tuesday, next week is

04:08results day. There'll be thousands of pupils out there that will be sweating on these results,

04:14and their parents as well. What we're expecting, I mean, there's been talk that

04:21some of the, I won't, lenience is not the right word, but it will be slightly harder in terms of

04:27how the exams were judged than the pandemic is. Any thoughts on what we might expect next week?

04:34You know, should pupils be rightly stressed or, you know, will good work still be rewarded?

04:43I think we're probably going to see the overall pass, like number of pupils passing at A, B and

04:49C, sort of returning back down to sort of pre-pandemic levels. That's been the direction.

04:56In 2022, the SQA operated a sort of generous grading system to take account of the impact of

05:02the disruption to education during the COVID period. And last year, there was a, but that's

05:10pretty much gone this year. There is some allowances, there's, you know, some recognition

05:17still, but we're pretty much back to where we were before the pandemic. But yeah, I mean,

05:22everyone, everyone kind of remembers it, don't they? The nerves waiting for that, what used to

05:26be an envelope, I think it's probably still an envelope for some people, but for an app or

05:31whatever it is these days, waiting for those results to come in and how they affect everything.

05:36But yeah, only one more week to go.

05:39Callum, I still remember it myself, absolutely terrifying, but good luck to all those parents

05:46and any pupils out there waiting and hoping that they get the results that they're after.

05:52You can read Callum's exclusive on the trends around exams at scotsman.com. You just go to

06:01the navigation bar, look for the education tab, that'll give you all our latest coverage,

06:06including Callum as well, writing about what the significance of this is and also how the future

06:14of pupils needs to be put first in this whole discussion around what to do with exams as well.

06:19Callum, thanks very much for joining us. Please, everyone follow us on Facebook,

06:23X and Instagram, and go out and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow in which we'll have all the

06:28latest on Labor's and Chancellor Rachel Reeve's spending cuts, which are due to be announced this

06:34afternoon. Thanks for joining us.

Category

Transcript

Recommended