SQA National Five exams cancelled

The SQA National Five exam diet has been cancelled for 2021, Scotland’s education minister, John Swinney, has confirmed this afternoon, Wednesday.

Higher and Advanced Higher exams are set to go ahead, but Mr Swinney said that it had been judged as “too big a risk” to plan for a full exam diet for next year.

All SQA exams were cancelled, earlier this year, due to the onset of coronavirus and lockdown. This drew some controversy when it came to results day in August, with many pupils unhappy that their estimated marks had been downgraded by examiners.

Mr Swinney said today that lessons had been learnt from this year’s exam process, and told the Scottish Parliament he was confident in new procedures for an estimated grading system — which will be applied to all students undertaking National Five courses for the 2020/21 diet.