SQA has announced changes to the 2025 exam timetable for National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher qualifications, after receiving complaints from its original scheduling plans.
Learners, schools and parents raised concerns over extra pressure and additional workload for pupils with proposals to have pupils sit two Higher exams on the same day.
A revamped timetable for 2025 will now start one day earlier on Friday 25 April, and end as planned on Monday 2 June.
SQA previously delayed the start of the timetable to Monday 28 April so learners had a full week back at school after the Easter holidays.
But that caused a problem by increasing the number of coincident and consecutive
exams - where two or more exams have been scheduled at the same time, or a learner
is due to sit two exams directly after one another.
A large number of concerns were lodged about the increase in pressure on learners.
In one case, Higher Psychology was set to commence an hour after the end of Higher English.
Exams for 14 different subjects have now been shifted to different days while a number of other exams have been allocated new starting times.
Jean Blair, director of operations at SQA, said: “SQA works with external stakeholders when drafting the examination timetable. Our top priority is developing a timetable that allows learners to produce their best work on the day of their exams.
“As the Easter holidays are later this year, we responded to feedback from partners and produced a compressed timetable to allow learners more time to prepare for their exams.
“This led to a rise in coincident and consecutive exams. We have listened to and share the concerns raised by schools, colleges, learners and parents/carers about this. The new timetable will ease pressure for many learners giving them a better chance to perform to the best of their abilities on the day of their exam.”
However, while the new timetable does decrease the number of learners impacted by scheduling issues overall, the changes may mean that some learners will have consecutive exams that they did not have previously.
Graham Hutton, General Secretary of School Leaders Scotland said: “The delayed start
to the exam period was designed to allow learners to be more exam-ready after the
later Easter holidays.
As a consequence, this led to an increased number of learners having exams close together or coincident. We therefore agree with the changes made by SQA to reduce the impact of coincident and consecutive exams on learners.”
Changes to Scotland’s school exam timetable after complaints
3 February 2025
