Scottish students will undertake new qualifications at National 4 and National 5 levels from 2031, with the new Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications introduced in 2032.
So revealed a quietly published online by the Scottish government on 23 June.
The upshot is that the first pupils to benefit from the fully reformed suite of Scottish school qualifications - so those due to enter S4 in 2031 and then S5 in 2032 - will start P5 in August.
Put another way, if you were in P1 the year Covid-19 hit - in 2019-20 - you will likely do Highers in 2030-31 and miss the fully-fledged reform of Highers that started with the pandemic.
The nine- and 10-year-olds who will experience the new approach were not even in school at the time of Covid, when the way Scottish secondary students were assessed found itself in the spotlight often for all the wrong reasons and, for a time, there was a real appetite for change.
Covid-fuelled appetite for change
That resolve stemmed from the hard-won learning that took place when teachers and schools were responsible for grading.
But it also stemmed from the shrinking of the attainment gap and the sense that a move away from high-stakes, end-of-year exams - towards a more mixed economy of assessment methods - could greatly benefit learners, especially those from the most deprived areas.
The need for change was then cemented when the 2021 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report on Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence highlighted the disconnect between the ambitions of CfE and the exam-heavy assessment system in Scotland in upper secondary, which was all too often leading to rote learning.
This prompted the government to announce an independent review of assessment in October 2021.
There has been much criticism of the government for its failure to act on that review’s recommendations. The Hayward review reported in June 2023, but the government did not respond until over a year later in September 2024.
Education secretary Jenny Gilruth rejected the recommendation that exams be scrapped below Higher level, but agreed there were “a number of practical national courses where an exam might not be needed” and that there should be “less reliance on high-stakes final exams”, with internal and continuous assessment playing a bigger part.
Since then, however, updates have been scarce.
In March, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) announced that exams in three N5 practical courses would be removed, but the document published last month - - was the first update of any significance.
Gilruth wrote to the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee on 25 June, . The “initial timeline”, she said, was designed “to give clarity to partners and practitioners…as well as to parents and carers and young people” about when changes in teaching and assessment will start.
The key question, however, is how she expected teachers, students and others to find out about it?
There was no press release and no ministerial statement or announcement to coincide with the publication of the timeline, which meant it was largely unreported (although Tes Scotland ran an article the day it was released).
It was also published when many Scottish schools were just days away from the end of term and the summer break.
It seems somewhat mindboggling that an update of such significance to schools, teachers, students and parents would make its way into the public domain in such a low-key and badly-timed manner.
There is often consternation that the wider public does not understand school-based qualifications, but if this is indicative of the efforts made to keep them informed of developments, is it any wonder?
Secondary heads taken by surprise
The government says it set out its approach to qualifications reform in its response to the Hayward review and adds that “education partners were aware that this publication would issue before the end of the school term”.
But secondary heads tell us they were also taken by surprise and found the timing baffling.
They also suggest that the pace of change set out when it comes to qualifications reform is too sluggish.
In response to Tes Scotland enquiries, the SQA - soon to become Qualifications Scotland - says some qualifications will undergo a short-to-medium-term review, with this work being done before the wider-scale reform.
The subjects put through this more rapid review process will be determined “where there is an immediate and evidence-based need to do so”, it says - subjects which have not been reviewed for over 10 years will be included, as will Higher history, given the issues raised with that qualification following the outcry over a drop in the pass rate in 2024.
The SQA says this work will echo that already carried out for some practical subjects.
The idea, it says, is to take an evolutionary approach - in line with Gilruth’s response to the Hayward review in September 2024, when she talked about “the evolution of Scotland’s approach to assessment in the senior phase”.
Schools lacking time for change
Schools often lack the time and space to deal with change, so evolution will likely be seen as preferable to revolution.
What is harder to forgive, however, is the poor communication and the failure to keep people informed of what’s coming.
There is probably no nefarious reason for this - more likely, this was about hard-pressed civil servants scrambling to hit a deadline that was set in the programme for government.
But that in itself does not bode well.
If those driving these reforms cannot lift their heads up to communicate their plans clearly, that should set alarm bells ringing.
Already, there have been pleas for extra time for teachers to engage with the curriculum review cycle through the provision of additional in-service days.
Those driving education reform must also have the time and resources they need to produce a quality curriculum and assessment system, that is developed with - and tested by - the profession.
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