On Friday 14th August, the SQA announced its Arrangements for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses in the 2020-21 session. This included links to the SQA's Technical Consultation on proposals for modifications to the assessment arrangements for the 2021 exam diet. The announcement also included links to a survey which closed for responses on...
Thoughts on Assessment (given all that's been going on)
The recent issues surrounding assessment and certification both in Scotland and around the UK, have prompted a great deal of discussion.With a recent increase in traffic to this blog, mainly to my previous posts on assessment, following a piece I had published in the Times Educational Supplement, I thought it'd be worth putting together an...
Thoughts on SQA Exams & Certification
In response to a discussion about assessment on the IOP Sputnik email forum for Scottish Physics teachers, I posted some thoughts on what the SQA could do differently. Some replies to the post suggested I should share these ideas further. It's a bit 'sassy' in places, as one of the replies put it, but here's...
Response to SQA Consultation on Assessment
The SQA have released a consultation on the assessment arrangements for the new qualifications, which can be found here - surveymonkey.com/r/TFJQCX2 Having blogged recently on the subject of assessment, I have decided to publish my own response. [SQA questions shown in bold, my responses below] 1. Which subject(s) do you deliver? Physics 2. It was intended that Units...
SQA Consultation on Reforming Assessment
In an acknowledgement that there are 'issues' with assessment, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) have opened a on-line consultation. Their survey can be found here - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TFJQCX2 Having produced a few posts recently on the subject of assessment I have been keen to respond to the survey. Once I have checked to make sure it...
How we could reform assessment and certification
In my recent post 'Why we need to reform assessment', I outlined a number of issues which give me concern over the assessment of SQA National 3-5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses, introduced as part of the delivery of Curriculum for Excellence. Whilst there may be many teachers who would wish for a return to...
Why we need to reform assessment
Following on from my post back in May 'Do Exams Pass Under CfE?', I have given the issues of assessment and certification some further consideration, which I discussed in my presentation at this year's Teachmeet SLF 'Breakout' event held at CitizenM, Glasgow back in September. This post is an attempt to summarise and explain the...
Do Exams 'Pass' under CfE?
After more than five years of ongoing development in Scottish secondary schools, the Curriculum for Excellence has reached its first round of 'gold standard' Higher examinations. Though the contents of many courses have been significantly revised, and a sizeable portion of the overall marks may come from a piece of coursework conducted in school, the...
Assessment, Recording & Reporting for CfE
I've been struggling of late to get to grips with assessment for our new S1 science course. I'd never been much of a fan of our old approach - 3 x 12 mark multi-choice test & 1 big KU & PS test on a whole term of work, every term in S1 & S2, up...