1. In my career, I've been known to be critical of the
@sqanews but have also worked closely with them on occasions. I have never known anyone working there who hasn't wished the best for all candidates and worked hard to achieve that.

2. This year, exams have been cancelled for the first time in over 130 years, and the faults in the system have been tested to destruction. This is the problem with a method of assessment that we have all been complicit in propping up for over a century.

3. It has always been the case that pupils are measured against each other and against past cohorts; that's the purpose of what is basically a norm referenced test designed to fit a bell curve. In other words, you can get 70% in an exam and fail if everyone else gets 71%.

4. This is because there has to be a small number of high achievers, and a big group of 'average' folk - and someone HAS to fail. We are so in thrall of the idea that intelligence, ability and attainment are inextricably bound together, this is how it must be.

5. And we have accepted that without communicating to pupils that it isn't about what they CAN do, but rather HOW they do in competition with their classmates and with their economically advantaged neighbours in other authorities. Everybody needs to 'beat' everybody else.

6. Any notion that we should junk such a system in favour of a detailed way of measuring each pupil's individual strengths and their future learning needs is met with utter bewilderment, as if a terminal high stakes test is the only way we can ever operate.

7. 'How can that be taught?' 'Employers and colleges need a grade!' 'Can you imagine the workload!' 'How would we know what to teach?' 'Parents need to know how their child is doing!' 'Pie in the sky rubbish!' All these are common comments.

8. At the advent of Standard Grade, a purely criterion referenced assessment system was met with outrage within and outwith the profession. If 'all' we had was a detailed breakdown of exactly what pupils could do, how could we identify those worthy of going on to Higher?

9. How could universities tell who was capable of further study? How would employers sort the wheat from the chaff in the application pile? As if a single, bald letter on a one sheet certificate solves that problem...

10. So a criterion referenced assessment was watered down to 'grade related criteria', and no longer were we measuring what knowledge and skills pupils possess, but how they had done in relation to their peers. It was one of the many opportunities missed.

11. As this results cycle unfolds, it may be that
@sqanews and @JohnSwinney have to explain the process in more detail, especially around downgradings or the impact on socially disadvantaged cohorts. That's as it should be. But let's reflect and seize the opportunity.

12. Fact is, if every teacher's estimates had been accepted, no-one would complain, and we'd continue to support a system that is inherently manipulative, because it's not about what a kid can do, but what they can do in comparison with others.

13. We'd carry on our merry way, because giving a kid a single grade at the end of a year is comfortingly familiar, and it's easier to teach an exam syllabus than it is to teach a curriculum.

14. What we ought to do is a root and branch reappraisal of what it means to assess a pupil, and educate ourselves first and 'stakeholders' like parents, universities and employers second about how we can devise systems that truly measure what our children can and cannot do.

15. Systems that offer them a detailed profile of knowledge and skills learned, and of gaps that need to be filled by future training. A B in Higher English offers a newspaper no information about what areas crucial to their choice a job candidate might be best or worst in.

16. This is the challenge and the opportunity going forward, rather than a post mortem on how we fix a system that was always going to creak under these crazy circumstances. We can't go back to saying that injustices in attainment are just 'how they did on the day.'

17. I suspect it's a conversation that @sqanews would welcome, and to which it would be an invaluable and essential contributor.

18. Apologies for messing up the posting of this thread!