PARENTS have raised concern about pressure being put on pupils by the new SQA assessment demands.

The decision to cancel formal exams for secondary pupils this year and replace them with teacher assessments means youngsters face up to four tests for each subject.

A virtual meeting of East Lothian Council heard that worried parents feared children were under more pressure with effectively four ‘exams’ to sit to pass each subject.

Lesley Brown, the council’s education chief, told councillors that schools were working with individual pupils to try to ensure the workload did not overwhelm them.

She told the meeting: “Pupils should not undertake any more than two assessments in a single day.”

Councillor Lachlan Bruce raised the issue, telling members that the subject had come up at parent teacher meetings.

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He said: “There is concern from parents that a child studying four subjects normally would have four exams but can now end up having 12 assessments to sit and the workload and pressure that can cause.

“I know we are not calling them exams but pupils will treat each assessment as such.”

Mr Bruce was speaking as the council was presented with a report on the Covid-19 response over the last year across all services.

The SQA, Scotland’s exam body, cancelled its formal exams after Deputy First Minister John Swinney took the decision not to go ahead with them in December.

The report told councillors: “Following the cancellation of SQA examinations for sessions 2022/21, all local authorities have been required to put in place an Alternative Certification Model that ensures that a range of evidence about pupil achievement is gathered prior to the awarding of final grades by the SQA.

“Schools will gather the required assessment evidence and make judgements about pupil achievement in the summer term.

“Working with secondary schools, the quality improvement team have put in place a rigorous and robust quality assurance and moderation process in place that will ensure that all results submitted to SQA accurately reflect the achievement of each pupil.”

Ms Brown said that teachers were working “around the clock” to make sure the assessment model was in place and were required by the SQA to provide between two to four assessments, including individual timed assessments in class for each pupil to support grades teachers would recommend for them.

And she added: "Education Scotland is assessing all local authorities and is currently in East Lothian looking at our work.”