Forces Children's Education

A package of support services – including further help with exam revision – is available for learners who are taking National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher courses in 2022, the Scottish Qualifications Authority has confirmed.

The intention is still for SQA exams to take place from April to June this year.

Additional support being announced follows significant modifications already made to course assessments at the start of this school year to help reduce the volume of assessments and ease the workload of learners, teachers and lecturers while maintaining the credibility and integrity of the qualifications.

Monitoring the situation

The SQA has been closely monitoring the disruption to learning and teaching across Scotland, including learner and staff absences. Following discussions with partners across the education system, and agreement by the SQA Board of Management, SQA is now moving to ‘Scenario 2’. This means that some revision support will be published for learners during the week beginning 7 March to help them with their revision in the final run-up to their exams.

SQA will provide revision support for all courses that have an exam. This will be tailored to reflect different types of question papers, any modifications to the question papers that are already in place, and the type and volume of content that is assessed in each question paper.

• Table showing the type of revision support that will be provided for each course (SQA website)

Fiona Robertson, SQA Chief Executive and Scotland’s Chief Examiner, said: “I fully understand that there remains significant disruption to learning and teaching caused by the pandemic. Teachers and lecturers across the country are working exceptionally hard to ensure learners receive all the support they need. I am also aware that learners may be feeling apprehensive or anxious about sitting formal exams for the first time this year.

“The substantial package of additional support SQA is announcing today is the fairest and best way we can help support all learners to demonstrate their level of knowledge, understanding and skills for each course, while also maintaining the integrity, credibility and standard of the qualifications.

“With the support of the education system, we will continue to do all we can to deliver for Scotland’s learners this year.”

Stewart Nicolson, from the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, said: “Given the level of disruption, it’s important that additional support has been identified for learners taking National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exams this year.”

More support

The other support services available to learners are:

• Exam exceptional circumstances service (available while exams are taking place)
• Grading (takes place once exams have been sat and marked)
• Appeals service 2022 (after results have been published)

Find out more about these services

Frequently asked questions

The SQA has also published answers to common questions about 2022 exams, contingency plans and about the exceptional circumstances and appeals services.