Dear Parents and Carers of pupils in S4 to S6,
Scottish Alternative Certification Model, 2021
Attached to this post is a timetable of the written assessments that will form part of the assessment process for producing your child’s exam grades. Across Scotland, and the wider UK, centralised exams were cancelled and over the last few months, Education Scotland and The SQA have developed a system called the ‘Alternative Certification Model’. This model depends on teachers having robust assessment evidence of a child’s achievements. To support this evidence requirement, the SQA have provided an exam that can be used. In Dumfries and Galloway, as in nearly all Local Authorities, this will be used in virtually all Subjects as the main evidence of achievement. As is normally the case, pupils will also have completed additional assessment practices in many subjects and these may be used to support judgements too, if required. Subjects with practical assessments will have these to do as well as their written ones. Although the SQA formal exams have been cancelled, the system that has replaced it is broadly synonymous with having a ‘Prelim’ (additional assessment), then a ‘final’ exam (main assessment) and practical assessment, where applicable. The results of this process are then checked with colleagues in school, in other schools, the Local Authority and the SQA.
In the assessment timetable, some of these assessments have been split up into smaller parts to make the assessments more manageable for pupils and to allow the assessments to fit in with the normal school timetable. This has the effect of making it seem like there are a huge number of assessments and the combined assessment timetable for all subjects and year groups can look a little overwhelming. To counter this I strongly recommend that the first thing pupils do is to extract from the master timetable their own personal timetable of assessments, just as pupils normally would with the SQA timetable, and then to base their personal revision on that.
As always, I wish our pupils the very best and would just like to reassure them that the anxieties and feelings of “unfairness” they feel this year are the same for all students across Scotland. We would encourage pupils to speak to their Pupil Support teacher if they are feeling overwhelmed. Pupil Support teachers may offer support themselves or refer to outside agencies, when needed.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Tuffery
Headteacher
