News / Council happy with exam results
THE anxious waiting is finally over! More than 630 local pupils received their exam results on Tuesday morning either by text, e-mail or through the letterbox.
While local education officials said they were very happy with another “very good performance”, individual results can make of break pupils’ career aspirations.
This year, for the first time, S4 pupils sat the new National Qualifications at levels 1 to 5 as part of Curriculum for Excellence.
A spokesman from the council’s children services department said the new qualifications were “very different” from the previous Standard Grade and should therefore not be compared.
Meanwhile, the new Higher qualification courses begin later this month and students will be sit the first exams next year.
Overall:
- the number of candidates sitting SQA qualifications in Shetland rose from 622 last year to 631;
- 93 per cent of candidates passed at least one N4, and 79 per cent passed at least one N5;
- At Higher level, the number of entries was up significantly from 844 to 911.
Brae high school student Calum MacColl was one of those who did better than initial prelim results had suggested.
The 17-year old from Voe got ‘A’s in higher math and higher physics and a ‘B’ in higher English. He also achieved ‘A’s in intermediate chemistry and engineering.
He is due to leave Shetland later this month to start a 21-month training course with oil and gas industry training body Opito, in Aberdeen, to become a mechanical engineer.
He said he had put a lot of work in revising for his highers but the pressure was significantly reduced when he was accepted for the apprenticeship in the oil and gas industry.
The last few months, he said, he had almost forgotten about the exam results as he was concentrating on his swimming career, training with Commonwealth Games athletes and pushing his personal best for the 100m butterfly to under one minute.
Officials are now reviewing the detailed results for Shetland’s secondary schools with head teachers and will make a fuller analysis of the outcomes of the 2014 exam diet in due course.
Vaila Wishart, the chair of the education and families committee, said: “This has been an excellent start to the new qualifications, and my congratulations to all the candidates, their teachers and parents.”
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