Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

John Swinney says it was always accepted that the grading system, brought in when exams were scrapped for the first time ever, would lead to questions being raised.

But the education secretary says it was vital to make sure that this year's students got the certification they deserved.

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Pass rates would not have been a fair reflection on performance if the SQA had not graded down some results, Keir Bloomer says.

"If you look at the results which have been coming out for the past two or three years based on teacher estimate alone, the gap between schools in more deprived areas and those in more affluent areas is much narrower than when judged by subsequent exams.

"In other words, teachers in more deprived areas are relatively more optimistic in their judgements. If the SQA had not revised down the number of grades that it did, the pass rates would have been absurdly high yesterday."

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Learners around the country are frustrated that their individual efforts have not been recognised, according to Lauren Steele, a fifth-year pupil at St Andrew's and St Bride's High School in East Kilbride.

She said: "How can they say a pupil goes to a certain school so they would probably get that (grade)? Everybody is different. I don't get how the SQA could downgrade a bunch of kids.

"So may kids in my school are in the same position as me, where it has been their modern languages which have been downgraded. At other schools it's been English or another subject - but they are grouping everyone."

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Thousands of Scottish school pupils have received worse results than they expected after the SQA lowered 125,000 estimated grades.

Lauren Steele's French result was one of them - going down from a predicted score of B to a C.

The fifth-year pupil has written an open letter to education secretary John Swinney criticising how the grades have been calculated.

She told Good Morning Scotland: "For so many people, the result they achieved in their prelim and which they thought they would get as a grade has been completely downgraded. It's just unfair.

"With the amount of cases across social media where kids are really shocked, it's not adding up

"How can you get a B in your prelim and then open a letter and it says at the bottom 'no award'?"

The news that the SQA is under fire for its "unequal" and "unfair" results moderation, with 120,000 pupils downgraded, features on many front pages. The poorest pupils were "significantly more likely" to have their grades lowered, report some papers.

In other news, the cluster of Covid-19 cases in Aberdeen makes the front pages, with a "wave" of city pubs closing in the north-east as more infections are linked to the Hawthorn Bar.

See all of Scotland's front pages.

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Keir Bloomer describes teacher estimates of students' grades - which formed the initial basis for what marks they should receive - as "very often optimistic".

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Responding to criticism of the SQA, Keir Bloomer - who chaired the commission on school reform - said what the organisation had done was "reasonable and fair".

"If anything, the overall set of results shows that they have been slightly lenient," he tells Good Morning Scotland.

"The pass rates are a bit up despite the fact that the period available for teaching and revision was less.

"So although I'm not surprised that there is a considerable volume of complaint, I think they've gone about their task in as reasonable way."

Good Morning Scotland
BBC Radio Scotland

Th Scottish Qualifications Authority has defended how it moderated results after school pupils were unable to sit exams because of the pandemic.

But the system has been criticised by parents and experts who feel pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were unfairly downgraded.

Barry Black, a researcher in educational attainment at Glasgow University, said the lack of transparency around the grading system had led to problems.

He told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "They (the SQA) have done what they said they weren't going to do.

"They have only relied on historical school attainment data to make these moderations, rather the the range of evidence and discussions that they said they would back in May."

It was a big day on Tuesday with schools at the centre of the latest development of the coronavirus lockdown.

Here's what happened:

• There were 23 additional positive cases in Scotland, which accounts for 0.9% of people newly tested.
• Provisional information is 15 of the 23 new cases were in the Grampian health board area.
• The number of cases in a cluster linked to an Aberdeen pub rose to 32.
• No deaths were registered, for the 19th day in a row.

• Thousands of Scottish pupils received worse results than expected after the country's exam body lowered 125,000 estimated grades - a quarter of the total.
• Education Secretary John Swinney said the results were robust
• Opposition politicians warned that there would now be a "deluge" of appeals, and accused the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) of treating the professional judgement of teachers with "contempt".
• Volunteers were sought for a "Scottish version" of a UK survey on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting people's social behaviour.

Welcome to the coronavirus in Scotland live page.

As it's Wednesday, the latest National Records of Scotland data on Covid-19 deaths will be published later.

We will bring you the latest from the Scottish government daily briefing.

And also any further developments on the exam results situation.