'My legs buckled when I opened my exam results during Covid'

A student whose exam results were downgraded during Covid says she still wants answers from education bosses after their decisions changed the trajectory of her life.

Erin Bleakley's plans were ruined after she was awarded Bs, Cs and Ds in her highers in 2020 after an emergency marking system was introduced.

Despite her results being eventually adjusted, she never got the A grades her prelims suggested she would get and she had to change course.

As former SQA head Fiona Robertson prepares to give evidence to the Scottish Covid Inquiry later, Erin wants someone to take accountability for what happened.

After lockdown came into force in March 2020 and schools were closed to pupils, teachers were instructed by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to estimate exam grades for pupils.

A later review found there was no consistency with how this was carried out around the country.

In June, the SQA then lowered 125,000 of these grades using an algorithm, saying the grades did not tally with the outcomes of previous cohorts at the same schools.

Public outrage grew when it became apparent that pupils who had gone to schools in deprived areas formed the bulk of students who had their results downgraded from teacher estimates.

Grades were then restored to teacher estimates for those who had been downgraded.

But by then it was too late for some pupils who had already lost their chance of a specific university course, because they had entered clearing.

Plus, some students were surprised that the restored teacher estimates didn't match prelim results.

Erin can't forget the moment she opened her exam results in August 2020.

She'd been studying for six Highers and after getting A grades at prelim, was hoping to study veterinary medicine.

"I remember being quite excited," she said. "I didn't think anything was going to go wrong. I thought I'd set myself up really well."

Then the postman arrived and Erin remembers opening the envelope, receiving three Bs, one C and two Ds.

"My legs buckled beneath me, I remember feeling I just couldn't believe this had happened," she said.

"It did not reflect anything that I'd done over the last two years."

Erin had never failed a class in her life. She said: "I was crying uncontrollably. I remember my mum just didn't know what to do and my dad came home from work early. It was a horrible experience."

The story was repeated on social media and among her school friends.

She said: "I remember thinking, something's not right here. All of my friends and people I know that wanted to do medicine weren't getting the grades that they got in their prelims."

Erin organised a Facebook page and set up a protest in Glasgow's George Square.

"It felt like my full life had disappeared in front of me. And when I started reading into it, I realised it wasn't anything to do with me. It was bigger, systematic inequality."

She added: "I'd read about the algorithm they used, I didn't know too much about it at the time but I just knew it wasn't right the way we'd been treated and that it was pupils from deprived communities that had been disadvantaged with the marking."

The week after the protest, John Swinney, who was education secretary at the time, said he was sorry for the "feeling of unfairness" caused by the downgrading, adding that it was "deeply regrettable we got this wrong".

Erin's adjusted grades were not enough. She pivoted to studying human geography.

Erin says she still wants answers. "It was a massive injustice that people faced. I think I would like to know if anybody in any of these deprived areas was consulted before these decisions were made.

"I think there needs to be some sort of accountability in the system.

"It has still left an impact on people to this day. So I do think it's important, even just for acknowledgement, to take accountability of what happened and what went wrong."

The experience set her off on a different path.

She is now a PhD student at the University of Glasgow, studying environmental research and community work.

Her research has looked into automated algorithms and the effect on lived experiences, looking at decisions about people which have been based solely on statistics.

"I've kind of built my full research around making sure that communities are involved in any work that I do because of the inequality that I faced, that a lot of us faced," she said

A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said: "The unprecedented Covid pandemic had an enormous impact across society, including in education, where the removal of exams for the first time in 100 years created a unique and very challenging situation.

"The SQA developed an alternative certification model in March 2020. In August 2020, the Scottish government instructed the SQA to revert any downgraded results to teacher and practitioner judgement.

"The Scottish government is a key participant in both the UK and Scottish Covid Inquiries and will follow all the evidence given at the Scottish Inquiry's implementation hearings closely."

A spokesman for the new Qualifications Scotland agency, which replaced the SQA, said: "Qualifications Scotland is committed to supporting the work of the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry and continues to engage fully with the Inquiry's work. It would not be appropriate to comment further while the Inquiry is ongoing."