Assessment Arrangements 2026

Official Statistics In Development

 

This document is a summary of assessment arrangements requested for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher between 2022 and 2026.

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing development. They may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Assessment arrangements allow candidates who are disabled, and/or have been identified as having additional support needs, access to appropriate arrangements to complete the assessment without compromising its integrity.

In this summary, 2026 assessment arrangement statistics are presented with reference to the previous year (2025) along with a historic series from 2022.

Assessment arrangements statistics have been revised in 2026, with a historic series for 2018 and 2019 produced alongside. We improved the methodology by producing statistics on assessment arrangements for candidates who were entered for the associated National Qualifications course from Table 2. More information is available in our background information.

The different awarding approaches in place across the five year period covered may have had an effect on assessment arrangements requested. This means that it is not possible to compare statistics across these years without full consideration of this contextual information. More information on awarding approaches is available in our background information for attainment statistics.

Headline figures

Assessment arrangement requests have been increasing year on year between 2022 and 2026.

Figure 1: Line plot showing total assessment arrangement requests and those with a course entry from 2022 to 2026.
Total requests Total with entry 80000 90000 100000 110000 120000 130000 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

 

The total number of assessment arrangements requests in 2026 was 129,700 for 39,730 unique candidates.

Of these, 1,050 (0.8%) did not have an entry for the associated qualification.

The revised statistics for the 2026 academic year use an improved methodology that filters arrangements with a corresponding entry for the associated course in each year.

In total, we received 128,650 assessment arrangement types for matching qualifications for 39,475 unique candidates, with an average of 3.3 assessment arrangements per candidate. The average amount of assessment arrangements has been increasing between 2018 and 2026.

Of the assessment arrangement requests received with a corresponding course entry, 74,850 (58.2%) were for National 5 subjects, 49,525 (38.5%) were for Higher subjects, and 4,275 (3.3%) were for Advanced Higher subjects.

Of the different assessment arrangement types, extra time had the highest volumes requested, with requests totalling 97,075 in 2026.

Figure 2: Bar plot showing the volume of requests for specific assessment arrangements in 2026 across all National Qualification levels.
Transcription without correction Transcription with correction Supervised breaks Signed to candidate Separate accommodation Scribe Rest periods Referral to principal assessor Reader Prompter Non standard paper size Non standard paper orientation Non standard font type Modified content Live presentation ICT with word processor without spellchecker ICT with word processor with spellchecker ICT with handheld spellchecker Extra time Enlarged print Enlarged certificate Digital question paper Coloured paper Candidate signs Calculator Braille certificate Braille Any other arrangements 0 25,000 50,000 75,000 Volume of requests

 

Subjects

At National 5, the qualification with the highest volume of assessment arrangement requests was English (with 14,955 requests).

At Higher, the qualification with the highest volume of assessment arrangement requests was English (with 10,420 requests).

At Advanced Higher, the qualification with the highest volume of assessment arrangement requests was English (with 730 requests).

Centre type

Of the assessment arrangements requests with a corresponding course entry in 2026:

  • 117,830 came from education authority secondary schools

  • 9,450 came from independent secondary schools

  • 1,040 came from further education colleges

  • the remainder came from special schools and other centre types.

Of the education authority requests, the largest volume of 10,470 came from The City of Edinburgh Council Education Department.

Sex

A greater proportion of assessment arrangement requests were submitted for female candidates than for male candidates in 2026.

Of the total matched assessment arrangement requests in 2026:

  • 56.6% came from female candidates. This was an increase from 56.0% in 2025 and an increase from 54.7% in 2022.

  • 43.4% came from male candidates. This was a decrease from 44.0% in 2025 and a decrease from 45.2% in 2022.

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)

Of the total matched assessment arrangements requests in 2026 with a matching Scottish Statistics Postcode Lookup (SSPL) postcode:

  • 14.7% came from SIMD 1 postcodes. This was an increase from 14.6% in 2025 and an increase from 13.0% in 2022.

  • 15.8% came from SIMD 2 postcodes. This was an increase from 15.7% in 2025 and an increase from 15.5% in 2022.

  • 18.2% came from SIMD 3 postcodes. This was an increase from 18.2% in 2025 and a decrease from 18.4% in 2022.

  • 24.1% came from SIMD 4 postcodes. This was an increase from 23.9% in 2025 and an increase from 23.8% in 2022.

  • 26.8% came from SIMD 5 postcodes. This was a decrease from 27.2% in 2025 and a decrease from 29.0% in 2022.

Figure 3: Stacked bar chart showing the percentage of assessment arrangement requests coming from each of the SIMD quintiles in the years 2022 to 2026.
13.0% 15.5% 18.4% 23.8% 29.0% 13.9% 15.3% 18.3% 23.5% 28.6% 14.1% 15.2% 18.5% 23.9% 27.8% 14.6% 15.7% 18.2% 23.9% 27.2% 14.7% 15.8% 18.2% 24.1% 26.8% 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 SIMD 1 SIMD 2 SIMD 3 SIMD 4 SIMD 5

 

The proportion of assessment arrangement requests coming from SIMD 1 has been increasing annually over the years included within this report while the proportion coming from SIMD 5 has been decreasing annually over the years included within this report.

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Date of publication: 4 August 2026

Contact name: Chris Boulter

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