Teachers And Pupils 'Put Under Stress By SQA Failings'

Scotland's largest education union says SQA failings over the new Nationals put teachers under pressure.

The EIS says a lack of practice papers, late assessment approaches and minimal course materials created anxiety, uncertainty and stress for teachers and pupils.

The SQA has admitted there were issues throughout the system, but that lessons will be learned.

In a report to Holyrood's Education Committee the union says: "For many of our members working in secondary education the school year 2013-2014 was a time of increased workload and stress due to the implementation timescale and arrangements relating to the introduction of N4 and N5 qualifications. 

"There are still on-going issues for teachers, schools and learners as schools consolidate National 2 to 5 qualifications and face the challenge of implementing New Highers.

"The EIS does not accept the view that the problems of the past session were caused simply by schools ‘over presentation’. The EIS view is that if there was a degree of over-presentation as a result of schools trying to safeguard the interests of pupils this was generated by the failure of both the CfE Management Board and SQA in communicating the key messages.

"The lack of exemplification and practice papers to assist in the understanding of standards, the late arrival of combined assessment approaches and the less than fully fleshed out course materials (despite the promise of such in the 2012 CfE funding agreement) all created workload pressures, anxiety, uncertainty and stress for teachers and learners.

"SQA failings have been at the forefront of EIS members’ concerns and SQA actions and procedures, late changes to units and assessments, lack of professional support and poor communication to schools and teachers had contributed hugely to the workload burdens experienced by schools. The EIS AGM, held in June 2014 and attended by over 300 teachers, made clear that in its view the SQA had failed to deliver the level of support which schools needed and deserved.