Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has made clear that it will not gather or publish any data from the Scottish National Standardised Assessments in order to compare schools. School level Achievement of CfE Level results, based on teachers’ professional judgement, are published along with other school level data.

The Scottish Government recognises that there are differing views on the reports generated by the SNSA system. One teacher commented that “Data is incredibly detailed and personalised. Feedback will be very useful in looking for next steps.” We will continue to look to enhance SNSA reports to ensure they are well matched to Curriculum for Excellence and provide high quality information for teachers.

Paragraph 31 of the User Review refers to the face to face feedback provided about the assessments at all stages (P1, P4, P7 and S3) as part of focus groups with schools and local authorities and classroom observations. These 9 focus groups and 6 classroom observations involved more than 50 teachers and other professionals, the vast majority of whom indicated their satisfaction with the reports.

We have offered schools maximum flexibility on carrying out the assessments and there were a number of successful approaches, including through the use of one-to-one support. Working in small groups and on a one-to-one basis is part of everyday teaching and learning in Primary 1.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the P1 assessments, and the SNSA in general.

The Scottish Government has made clear that individual teachers and schools, in conjunction with their local authorities, should decide the most appropriate time during the school year for children to take the Scottish National Standardised Assessments. We will discuss with local authorities the importance of schools having the flexibility to make the decision on timing.

There were 51,513 FTE teachers in 2017-18. Of those, 3558 FTE teachers were teaching P1 in September 2017. This includes those teaching composite classes of pupils from two or more years. We do not have a breakdown of the number of teachers who taught the children and young people who sat SNSAs in 2017-18.

The SNSA were developed in discussion with teachers and the Scottish Government has sought feedback from users as an integral part of the continuous improvement process. A number of system improvements, for example replenishment of a third of the questions, were already in train prior to more recent feedback such as the EIS member survey.

As stated in the User Review published on 28 August 2018, the assessment platform will be enhanced with a more systematic user feedback process. At the end of each assessment, a short age-appropriate survey will be available for children and young people that will encourage them to feedback on their experience.

The Scottish Government is not aware of specific instances where teachers have been prevented from undertaking SQA duties.

The release of teachers to undertake SQA appointee duties is a matter for local authorities and schools.

SQA appointees play an invaluable role in the delivery of SQA’s functions, whilst also offering teachers the opportunity to develop their skills and enhance their understanding of assessment and quality assurance techniques.