Please note, this correspondence is in four parts. The first details our position as it stands in respect of our January assessment period, the second outlines our position as it relates to the generation of evidence that will be used by staff to inform teacher judgement. The third provides clarity on the quality assurance timeline the SQA will implement at National 5 level. The final section is a brief summary of the impact of COVID on our community thus far, including an update on P7/S1 transition work.
If you would like further clarity on the undernoted then please do not hesitate to contact me directly by using the ‘Contact Us’ form on our website – https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/stjosephsacademy/contact-us/ .
January Assessment Block
I addressed every pupil in S4 to S6 today and stressed that their immediate educational priority is to adequately prepare for the assessments which will take place in January.
As intimated in the letter released in mid November, we intend to run two assessment blocks this session. The assessment blocks will run in January and April and will be for all S4-S6 pupils studying for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher awards. In most subject areas, we will run prelim exams at these times.
We have a draft prelim diet which we will release to young people as soon as possible but no later than next week. There are some COVID specific risk assessment and health and safety considerations we must take account of prior to being able to commit to dates, times and locations for January assessments.
All pupils know that they are preparing for assessments in all subject areas. Please be assured of the fact that the delay in releasing specific dates and times is to ensure that the protocols we put in place for administering assessments do not compromise our risk assessment.
Teacher Judgement – National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher Awards
Following the cancellation of Higher and Advanced Higher exams, we are not yet in receipt of SQA guidance for teachers. However, we anticipate that the advice we receive will be broadly similar to that already available at National 5 level. This means that staff are likely to assess between two and four pieces of evidence in each subject area before coming to a teacher judgement as to the provisional award a young person should receive. It is important to understand that in some subject areas, assessment evidence will draw on a combination of prelims and folio/practical work, while in others, the assessment evidence will be drawn mainly from both prelim papers.
At the time of writing, we are close to being in a position whereby we can share subject by subject clarity at National 5 level. We hope to release this to young people either next week or during the first school week of the new calendar year.
Given that we are not yet in receipt of SQA guidance at Higher or Advanced Higher level, I do not anticipate that clarity around which pieces of work will be used to inform subject by subject judgement of performance at these levels will be available until late January at the earliest.
SQA Quality Assurance – National 5
SQA published quality assurance guidance yesterday. This guidance outlines how the SQA intend to ensure that grades issued this session are fair for all learners in Scotland.
Communication for young people can be found here:
https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/96098.html
Communication for Parents/Carers can be found here:
https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/96097.html
P7/S1 Transition
One aspect of school life which has changed dramatically this session is our P7/S1 transition process. Mr Boyle met virtually with P7 pupils from St. Patrick’s Primary this morning. Similar sessions will follow shortly for those pupils at St. Andrew’s, Mount Carmel, St. Sophia’s and St. Xavier’s. The majority of our transition events will need to take place virtually. We appreciate the support of P7 parents/carers as we get used to holding virtual meetings across different school settings.
COVID
We have been very fortunate thus far in that we have only had one occurrence of school level contact tracing since August. Contact tracing on that occasion impacted upon pupils in S1 and S2 only. A very, very small number of staff and pupils have contracted COVID since August and I would like to reiterate my previous thanks around the readiness at which all members of our school community have adapted to our new working environment and health and safety protocols. I do appreciate that community based transmission has resulted in some periods of isolation for a number of our young people and acknowledge that in a small number of cases, pupils have been out of school for around two weeks.
Pleasingly, the overwhelming majority of those in S4-S6 have been able to engage in course content and learning and teaching since August. I trust that this will stand our young people in good stead in advance of what will be a very busy 2021.
Kind Regards
Mr Kane
