West Lothian Council revises term dates for new school year in 2026-27
The changes will see Easter holiday moved forward and will also take account of the council election in early May 2027.
In a report to the Education PDSP Hannah Haywood, Customer Services Manager said: 'Easter is early in 2027.'
She added: 'Proposed dates for session 2026/27 were presented to Education PDSP on 1 April. Consultation on the proposed dates was still under way at that time.
'Four responses were received, two expressing satisfactions with the proposed dates, and two requesting that the Easter Break should be later.
'Since the meeting on 1 April 2025, new information about the SQA time-scales has been provided, and it is now clear that the previously proposed timing of the Easter break would potentially negatively impact on students meeting submission deadlines for SQA awards.
She added: 'Easter is early in 2027, and the original proposal was for the schools to break up on Friday 19 March, and resume on Monday 5 April, with the Easter weekend in the middle.
'A new proposal is now being presented, which moves the Easter break to make it one week later, starting on Good Friday 26 March, and resuming on Monday 12 April.
'As the Easter break is now two weeks and one day long rather than two weeks, the new proposal removes the Friday from the September weekend to make sure that we provide the required 190 teaching days in the session.'
As ever the West Lothian holidays are unlikely to tie with neighbouring councils, many of which have yet to be confirmed.
Chairing the PDSP Councillor Andrew McGuire said he and fellow councillors were unlikely to forget to move an in-service day to the first Thursday in May as this marks the end of their current council term.
The in-service day in May 2026 has also been moved from Tuesday 5 May to Thursday 7 May to coincide with the Scottish Parliamentary Election.
Term dates for 2026/27 are:-
Pupils return: Wednesday 12 August
September weekend: Monday 21 September
October holiday: Friday 16 October-Tuesday 27 October
Christmas holiday: Friday 18 December- Tuesday 5 January
Mid Term: Friday 5 February – Tuesday 16 February
Easter Holidays: Thursday 26 March – Monday 5 April
May Day holiday Monday 3 May
Staff in-service Thursday 6 May.
The new term dates will have to be confirmed by the Education Executive when it meets in two weeks' time.
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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
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The SQA has likened the changes to a fluctuation in National 5 Maths in 2023, when attainment rates fell by roughly seven percentage points before returning to nearly the same level. However, such a drastic dip and recovery in quick succession is highly unusual, particularly when the decline in Higher History attainment in 2024 was largely down to a 25% reduction in student scores on a single exam paper. The 2024 results triggered a firestorm for the [[SQA]], leading to multiple rounds of tense scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament's Education Committee, internal reviews, complaints raised by teachers and, ultimately, a resignation and restructuring at the very top of Scotland's exam body. Given the incredible amount of attention paid to Higher History between the first time teachers flagged concerns in August 2024 and results day 2025, it was reasonable to expect a rebound in performance. However, the degree of improvement makes the 2024 numbers even harder to ignore. The change strongly suggests that something was done right this year to get attainment back on track, but that only makes the question of what went wrong last year more important to answer. When asked if anyone knows that answer, [[SQA]] officials repeatedly told The Herald that the exam board 'stands by the 2024 results". What happened in 2024? In August 2024, history teachers raised complaints that the SQA 'moved the goalposts' on Higher History, ultimately subjecting students to an 'unfair' marking process. Teachers with marking experience told The Herald about a pair of concerns at the time: students were required to be much more specific when answering questions, while teachers had not been made aware of any changes. The SQA said that the marking approach in 2024 was "consistent with previous years". However, one month later, following a meeting with Cabinet Secretary for Education Jenny Gilruth, the SQA launched an investigation into Higher History and promised to take action if it found any problems. The resulting report was panned by many teachers, who dismissed it as a 'whitewash' after revelations that showed the review only interviewed people with links to the exam board and not the teachers and markers who had raised the initial concerns. Questions over Higher [[History]] marking carried into 2025, with more Holyrood committee sessions taking testimony from representatives of the Scottish Association for Teachers of [[History]] (SATH), [[SQA]] officials and Mrs Gilruth. In February, Chief Executive Fiona Robertson stepped down after five years in the role. The [[SQA]] would eventually decide to split the previously combined roles of chief executive officer and chief examining officer. Most recently, in March, Douglas Ross MSP, chair of the [[Holyrood]] education committee, pressed for the [[SQA]] to release a report of 'lessons learned' from the 2024 marking. This was sent to the committee in the form of an action plan for how it would approach the subject in 2025. What changed this year? According to the 2025 SQA results, Higher History attainment rates increased from 65.7% to 80.3%. This increase of 14.6 percentage points wiped out the previous 13-point drop, and made it more clear that something was not right in 2024. Speaking after the results were presented, SQA Chief Examining Officer Donna Stewart said that the SQA carried out expanded understanding standards events, meant to help Higher History teachers understand how what students would need to demonstrate to succeed in the course. She explained that these efforts were part of a 'system-wide approach' from local authorities, teachers and the SQA to recognise that the attainment rate in 2024 required action. Regardless, she added that the SQA is confident that 2024's results were "an accurate reflection of learners' performance". 'In terms of last year's results, we stand by those results." Read more: When asked whether the SQA ramped up understanding standards efforts because it had identified poor teacher understanding as a contributing factor in 2024, Mrs Stewart said that was not the case. 'On the back of those results last year, there was a meeting with Scottish Government staff and ourselves and we took action points away from that. The challenge for us is that we set the assessments, obviously with teachers who mark the assessments, and report on assessments, but things that contribute to the delivery of those assessments are outwith our scope. It's important that we are all playing our different parts in that. Obviously, understanding standards is a key area in terms of supporting the system.' She said that the decision to increase understanding standards events and make information available online was where the SQA felt it could contribute. 'It's not to say we are targeting any particular issue. It is just that that is the space we are in, and that is where we can contribute as part of the wider system.' She said that the rebound this year reflected a dedication from teachers and local authorities to address a problem from 2024, and, even if that problem has still not been fully defined, learners and educators should be 'celebrated' for the success this year. History teachers have also told The Herald that, regardless of any outstanding questions about 2024, there was a consensus among the profession, including the SQA, that improving the outcomes for learners was the priority this year. Mrs Stewart added that Higher History is one of the subjects slated for review during a programme of rolling reform under Qualifications Scotland, the body which takes over from the SQA later this year. Two potential explanations, but both cannot be true It seems that the immediate problem has been corrected by carrying out more robust understanding standards events for teachers ahead of the 2025 exams, but unless the SQA provides a more concrete reason for the 2024 drop, anyone interested in understanding what went wrong in the first place is left to decide between two competing explanations, as presented by teachers and the SQA. Either something changed in the marking standard and teachers were left in the dark, or 2024 was an outlier year in which students' preparation and performance was 'weak'. To put it differently, either the SQA made a significant error out of the blue, or teachers did. Without further details from the exam board, the latter possibility requires a further acceptance that over the course of three years, teachers and students knew how to prepare for one part of the Higher History exam, forgot, and then came back better than before. The former possibility can be explained by the SQA making an error and struggling to respond. The Scottish Government has accepted the SQA's previous inquiries into 2024's Higher History results and supported its findings. A spokesperson said: 'We know that pass rates for individual courses vary year on year – in both directions. A similar dip followed by recovery was seen with National 5 Mathematics in 2023. 'SQA has worked closely with the Scottish Association of Teachers of History and the profession following the review that was undertaken and there were also additional understanding standards events for Higher History last year.'
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
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Exam results day is unmatched in America – is that good?
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The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
New chief says SQA 'shouldn't be marking our own homework'
He added that he remained 'troubled' by the persistent concerns about whether pupils were treated fairly. Pass rates for Higher History students dropped by 13 percentage points in 2024 due to sharp declines in scores for one specific component – the Scottish History exam paper. In August last year, The Herald revealed that teachers, including current exam marks, had accused the SQA of requiring more detailed answers than had previously been the case, and of failing to inform teachers about this change in advance. We subsequently discovered that despite rejecting the concerns, the SQA had in fact launched an investigation two days after a meeting with education secretary Jenny Gilruth. However, this review was conducted by SQA staff and it later emerged that the only people interviewed during the process were those alleged to have been responsible for the crisis. Although the exam board initially promised that the findings would be made public before the end of September, they were not in fact released until 6 November 2024 – 24 weeks after students had sat the exam itself. The report exonerated SQA staff entirely, claiming that 'the marking standard in 2024 did not change and that the marking and grading processes worked as intended', but was dismissed as a 'disgrace' and a 'whitewash' by teachers and politicians. READ MORE The release of 2025 exam results has confirmed that Higher History pass rates have rebounded in a single year, raising further questions about the reasons behind the extreme decline seen last year. The chair of Holyrood's education committee has raised concerns that the 2024 Higher History results 'were not sound' and confirmed his intention to raise the matter with both the SQA and Scottish Government. Given these developments, Mr Page was asked if the issue should be revisited, and whether a willingness to retrospectively identify and resolve any mistakes might show that the SQA is genuinely changing as an organisation. 'The honest answer is yes,' he said. 'But also the answer the honest answer is how and to what purpose?' 'We had the review, it was reported to parliament, it was accepted by parliament, and then we had an action plan and we've delivered on the action plan. That's what we have done. Now, with the validity of each of those stages, teachers still have concerns about that, and a lot of our learners will as well. 'And that's where I'm troubled. That's where I'm troubled because where were the mistakes made? Were they made in our organisation or was it a compendium of results and issues and different things?' 'When we make mistakes, it's really important that we understand what we did wrong and how we're going to fix it.' A spokesperson for the Scottish Government, which has defended the original SQA review, said: 'The Scottish Government accepted the findings and actions included in the SQA's review into Higher History in 2024. 'The SQA has worked closely with the Scottish Association of Teachers of History and the profession following the review, and has delivered a number of improvements, including extra Understanding Standards events for Higher History.'
