The Hayward Review: How Scotland's Exams Are Changing

You’ve probably seen headlines about Scotland scrapping exams. That’s not quite what’s happening — but the changes are real, and they will affect your child if they’re currently in primary school.

What the Hayward Review is

In 2021, the Scottish Government commissioned Professor Louise Hayward of the University of Glasgow to lead an independent review of Scotland’s qualifications system. The review reported in June 2023 with 26 recommendations. The headline proposal: replace National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers with a new Scottish Diploma of Achievement.

This wasn’t a bolt from nowhere. Criticism of Scotland’s exam system had been building for years, sharpened by Scotland’s falling PISA results — concerns about narrowing the curriculum in S4–S6, over-reliance on terminal exams, stress on pupils, and the gap between what CfE promised (breadth, skills, creativity) and what the qualification system rewards (memorisation under timed conditions).

What was proposed

The review’s key proposals:

• Scottish Diploma of Achievement — a single award combining three elements: programmes of learning (academic subjects), a project (extended independent work), and personal development (community involvement, volunteering, wider skills)
• Less reliance on terminal exams — more coursework, portfolio assessment, and teacher judgement
• Broader recognition — skills, volunteering and work experience counting towards the diploma alongside exam grades
• A new body to run it — SQA to be replaced (this has happened — Qualifications Scotland launched in late 2025)

What the diploma would mean day to day

The three-element structure sounds abstract, so it’s worth translating into school terms.

Programmes of learning are the closest to what exists now — your child would still study subjects, still be taught by subject teachers, still be assessed. The change is in how much of that assessment happens in a single exam hall in May versus across the year through coursework and teacher judgement.

The project is genuinely new for most pupils. Think of the Higher History assignment or the Advanced Higher dissertation, but as a universal entitlement rather than a component of some subjects — every young person completing an extended piece of independent work on something they chose. Done well, this is the most university-like and work-like thing a school can ask for. Done badly, it’s a moderation nightmare — which is exactly why the assessment design is taking time.

Personal development is the most contested element. Recognising volunteering, caring responsibilities, work experience and wider skills sounds unarguable — until you ask how you certify it fairly. A pupil with a part-time job and a pupil whose family can arrange an internship shouldn’t be scored on opportunity. How the diploma avoids rewarding advantage is one of the genuinely hard design problems still open.

The reserved-question list: what’s still unanswered

For all the direction-setting, the questions parents actually need answered remain open:

• Grading — will the diploma carry grades, a pass/fail, or a profile? Universities can’t set offers until this is fixed.
• Subject choice — does the diploma change how many subjects pupils carry in S4–S6, or the current column-based option choices?
• The UCAS tariff — a new qualification needs a published points value before the first cohort applies to university, not after.
• Appeals and moderation — more teacher judgement means more weight on the appeals system and on cross-school consistency checking.
• Who sits what during transition — reform cohorts always overlap. A pupil could plausibly sit old-style National 5s and a new-style senior award, and schools will need to run both systems at once.

None of this is a reason to panic; all of it is a reason to treat confident predictions — in either direction — with suspicion.

What’s been accepted

The Scottish Government accepted the review’s direction in September 2023. Specifically:

• SQA replaced by Qualifications Scotland — done. The new body took over in late 2025 with a broader remit including curriculum alignment.
• Scottish Diploma of Achievement — accepted in principle. The detailed design is underway but not finalised.
• More coursework and less terminal assessment — accepted in principle. How this works in practice (and whether it means fewer exam papers or shorter ones) is still being worked out.
• Project-based component — accepted. How it’s assessed and moderated is unresolved.

The timeline

This is the part that matters most for parents. When does this actually affect your child?

• Now (2026): National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers continue exactly as before. No changes to the exam system.
• 2027–2028: Qualifications Scotland designs the new framework. Possible small-scale pilots in a handful of schools.
• 2028–2030: Earliest possible phased introduction. The first cohort to sit genuinely new qualifications is unlikely before 2030.
• 2030+: Full implementation — if everything goes to plan.

If your child is currently in S1 or above, they will almost certainly sit National 5s and Highers as they exist today. If your child is currently in P5 or below, they may be the first cohort to experience the new system.

What teachers think

Teachers are broadly supportive of the principles — less exam pressure, more flexibility, recognition of broader skills. But they’re sceptical about implementation. The EIS (Scotland’s largest teaching union) has warned that:

• Teachers need significant training before delivering new assessment models
• Workload will increase if coursework replaces exams without a reduction in class sizes
• Moderation of portfolio-based assessment is much harder than marking exam papers
• The 2010 CfE rollout was rushed and teachers don’t want a repeat

These concerns are legitimate. The biggest risk isn’t the change itself but a poorly managed transition.

What universities think

Scottish universities are cautiously supportive. They were involved in the review and understand the proposal. The worry is international recognition — will an English university admissions tutor understand a Scottish Diploma of Achievement the way they understand Highers? Will UCAS have a clear tariff?

Qualifications Scotland is working with UCAS on this, but it’s an unresolved question. Every time Scotland changes its qualifications (as it did with CfE in 2013), there’s a transition period where universities are learning the new system. That creates uncertainty for the first few cohorts.

The lesson from the last reform

Scotland has done this before, and the CfE transition is the case study everyone in Scottish education has in mind. The Curriculum for Excellence promised breadth, skills and creativity; the qualifications bolted onto it in 2013 were designed on a compressed timetable, teachers reported being under-supported, and the first cohorts sat exams their teachers were still learning to prepare them for. The vision wasn’t the problem — the implementation was.

That history explains both the cautious Hayward timeline and the scepticism of the unions. It also gives parents a useful test for every announcement between now and implementation: is this change arriving with training, materials and time attached, or is it arriving as a press release? The first CfE lesson is that the gap between those two things is where pupils get caught.

What parents should watch for

You don’t need to follow every consultation, but a handful of signals will tell you how this is really going:

• Pilot announcements. When Qualifications Scotland names pilot schools and subjects, the reform has moved from paper to practice. Watch whether pilots run for full cycles before national rollout, or get compressed.
• Teacher training money. Serious reform shows up as funded training time in schools. If new assessment models arrive without visible in-service provision, that’s the CfE mistake repeating.
• A published UCAS position. The moment universities can say what a diploma result means for entry, most of the uncertainty for families evaporates. Until then, it hasn’t.
• Your own school’s messaging. Schools are usually briefed ahead of parents. If your school starts describing changes to S3 course-choice processes or senior-phase assessment, ask what’s driving it.
• Transition-year protections. The key question for any cohort caught mid-change: will pupils be assessed under the system they were taught under? Any honest answer starts with yes.

What this means for your child — right now

If your child is in S1–S6: nothing changes. Focus on the exams they’re going to sit, not the ones that might exist in five years.

If your child is in primary: the system they enter in S4 may look different from the one current S4 pupils are in. But the core skills — reading, writing, numeracy, analytical thinking — will still be what matters. No parent needs to change what they’re doing today.

Our view: the Hayward proposals are sensible in principle. Scotland’s exam system is too narrow, too stressful, and too disconnected from CfE’s original vision. But reform only works if it’s properly funded, teachers are trained, and the transition is gradual. The worst outcome would be a rushed implementation that creates a chaotic first cohort — and parents are right to watch the timeline carefully.