Registering a National Qualifications appeal - important information

Please read the following guidance and register your appeal below.

You have the right to appeal directly to SQA. This guide tells you what information you will need to complete the registration form. It also provides some information on things you should consider when deciding whether you want to appeal.

Your result is based on demonstrated attainment. Demonstrated attainment means you have shown the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to be awarded the course. It is important that results are based on evidence of learning and skills, so you can have confidence in your results. During May, SQA carried out a review of a sample of assessment evidence from each school and college and provided feedback. Schools and colleges have also taken further steps to ensure fairness, such as making sure more than one professional is involved in deciding your results.

Completing the Form

Please do not use Internet Explorer (IE) when completing this form  use another browser (for example Chrome, Firefox, Safari).

Macbook users we are aware of an issue with the form when trying to enter your date of birth using the Safari browser. Please try using the Chrome browser and if that fails please use a different device to register your appeal.

If you need to, or prefer to, you can ask someone (e.g., a parent or carer) to complete the form on your behalf.

To complete the form, you will need to provide the following information: 

• Your name
• Your date of birth
• Your Scottish Candidate Number (SCN). You can get your SCN:
  • from the top of the letter you should have received from the National Qualifications 2021 Group highlighting support available.
  • from a previous SQA certificate.
  • from your school or college. by completing the candidate enquiry form
• Your personal email address
• Select the Level and Subject you want to register to appeal for. You can register for multiple subjects in the same form.

Reason for Appeal

You will be asked to select the reason you want to appeal from 3 options: 

1. An appeal against the academic judgement made

• This is where you believe the grade submitted to SQA by your school or college is lower than the grade of the evidence you have produced during the assessment process.
• If you are appealing on academic judgement, it is important that you understand what assessment evidence was used and how your grade was determined. This will help you to decide whether appealing on academic judgement is right for you. If you have not had this discussion with your school or college, we strongly recommend that you do.
• If you go ahead with the appeal, your school, college, or training provider will send SQA the assessment evidence that was used to determine your grade.They will not send us any additional evidence or information. SQA will review the evidence against the national standard for the course.
• You do not need to provide us with any additional information to support your request.
• There are three possible outcomes for appealing on the grounds of academic judgement:
  • Grade goes up
  • No change to grade
  • Grade goes down
• This is consistent with what we do every year and makes sure that decisions are based on evidence.

2. An appeal against an unresolved administrative error

• where you think an error needs to be corrected in how your result was entered into SQA's system, but your school, college or training provider disagrees, or you think SQA has made an error when processing your results, and you want SQA to investigate it for you. For example, you believe you have been resulted a B grade for N5 English, but your school or college has entered this into our system as a D.
• There are two possible outcomes of appeal on the grounds of an unresolved administrative error:
  • Appeal not upheld. No action required.
  • Appeal upheld. Action necessary by SQA or centre to correct the error.

3. An appeal on grounds of discrimination where there has been a breach of the Equality Act 2010

• This must have been either acknowledged by your school, college or training provider or established by a court or the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
  • It is important to note that SQA cannot investigate a claim of discrimination at your school, college or training provider and decide whether it occurred or not. What SQA can do is ensure you are certificated fairly, so any claim of discrimination must be a settled matter before you can appeal on this ground.
  • If one of these things has happened, then SQA would review all the information available and decide if the appeal can go ahead. If it can go ahead, SQA would work with your school, college, or training provider to agree the best way of making sure you are awarded your qualifications in a fair way.
  • This ground of appeal includes where your school or college has failed to provide an agreed assessment arrangement.
    • For example, they had agreed to give you extra time to complete assessments or provide you with easy-to-read materials, but these things were not provided. SQA would speak to your school, college, or training provider to find out what happened and agree the best way of making sure you are awarded your qualifications in a fair way. All appeals relating to Assessment Arrangements must relate to those previously agreed with your school, college, or training provider.
    • There are three possible outcomes of an appeal on the grounds of discrimination
      • Appeal not upheld. No change to grade.
      • Appeal upheld. Action necessary by SQA or centre to review grade awarded.
      • Appeal upheld. No action necessary by SQA or centre to review grade awarded.

If you are appealing against an unresolved administrative error or are appealing on the grounds of discrimination contrary to the Equality Act,you will have to provide a short, written explanation of what you believe has happened. This will be shared with your school, college, or training provider as part of the process for your appeal. If you need to, or prefer to, you can ask someone (e.g. a parent or carer) to complete this on your behalf.

• Your explanation should be very clear and to the point.
• There is no need to provide SQA with specific details of why you believe discrimination has taken place as SQA will not be involved in any investigation into a claim of discrimination.
• If you do not already have written confirmation that discrimination has taken place, you should let us know if you are pursuing this with your school, college, or training provider or if this is being pursued by another means such as through a court or Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

The following are some examples of what you could include in your explanation if you are signalling your intent to appeal on the grounds of unresolved administrative error or on grounds of discrimination.

• During the course of the year, I believe that I was discriminated against because of my gender, which is contrary to the Discrimination Act 2010 and I believe this has affected my provisional result. I am in talks with the school about this and waiting for the outcome.
• My college agreed that I can get 15 minutes extra time when I sit an assessment. This did not happen when I sat my assessment for N5 mathematics, and I want to appeal my result as I believe I could do better if I had had that extra time.

Priority Appeals

If you have a place at college, university, at a training provider or with an employer that is dependent on the result of the appeal(s), click 'Yes' on the form.

• If the place is at a Scottish Higher Education Institute (HEI) you can select it from the drop-down menu.
• If it is an HEI out with Scotland, a college, training provider or employer you should select the 'Other' option and provide the name of the organisation.

If someone has completed the form on your behalf

If someone has completed the form on your behalf, they will be asked to tick a box to confirm this, tell us their name and their relationship to you, e.g., parent or carer.

Your information

As part of the 2021 appeals service, we need information from you and your school, college or training centre to register and review your appeal submission and, if you are appealing an academic judgement, review your assessment evidence.

We will collect this information when you register your intent to appeal either through SQA's website or through your school, college or training centre.

You can find out more about the information we will collect and how we will use it as part of the 2021 appeals service, as well as your rights. Your rights include the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. You can find out more about how to do this can be found under 'How do I request my information'

Frequently asked questions

If you receive an email saying that your submission is invalid, you can fix this by completing our invalid submission feedback form.

If you don't receive an email confirmation after submitting your appeal request please check your spam folder in your email client. If, after checking your spam folder, you do not have a confirmation, we can look into this for you.

If you have any other problems with the form or further questions our frequently asked questions provide more information on the 2021 appeals process.

Declaration

It is very important that you read and understand what you are agreeing to when you register to appeal.

Once you have submitted the registration to appeal the only thing that will stop it being processed is if you tell us to withdraw the appeal by completing our withdraw an appeal form or by emailing customer@sqa.org.uk  you have until 12 August to do this. Or you can ask our centre to withdraw the appeal until 27 August.

Register to appeal