Since the return to campus, one or two of you have contacted me to ask for a reminder about how final grades will be assessed. I think maybe as we edge closer to the May assessments, it’s all starting to become a bit real and the nerves are kicking in. Stay calm. The most common question I’m hearing is if you did some good coursework before/during lockdown, can that still count towards your final grade or does it all hang on the May assessments?

There will be a letter going out with your reports which will answer your FAQs. Here’s a wee summary in the meantime.

When we use the word “coursework”  that’s things like folio essays, assignments, practicals. Those all count towards your final grade, unless through the course of the year, the SQA removed them as compulsory coursework. Ask your subject teachers what their proportion of your overall grade is. (For example, your English folio is 30% of your overall grade.) That all still counts but has to be done under controlled conditions, not at home. (That’s why we’ve had you in for practicals over the last few weeks.)

Before the current lockdown, you received a letter explaining that your final grade will be based on two assessment blocks: the January one and the April one. Sadly, lockdown made the January one impossible. That left the April one. You then received a letter saying we have put the April one back a bit to May. (To create more teaching time.)

So that’s where we’re at.

It has been our advice from the word go that you should be putting lots of effort into your ongoing assessments throughout the year. That’s not because of Covid – that would be how to get a good grade every year.

As you know, home/lockdown work isn’t done under exams-conditions so that wouldn’t count as assessment evidence. That leaves any of the assessments you might’ve done between August and December under exam-conditions in class. As explained in a previous letter, a limited number of those may be used as part of “supplementary holistic” assessment evidence. That hasn’t changed. However, SQA have always said that the most convincing, robust assessment is that which covers the whole course (i.e. a prelim-type whole paper rather than snippets of partial papers) and also that which is taken from late in the course (because grades are better the more practice you’ve had.)

Long story short, the May assessments plus your coursework assignments form by far the most significant part of your final award. A very limited number of supplementary pieces may, in some cases, factor in.

Thanks.