WJEC teams with Scotty’s Little Soldiers to make exams safer for bereaved students

Leading awarding body WJEC has teamed up with Scotty’s Little Soldiers, the national charity supporting bereaved military children and young people, in a landmark initiative aimed at making future exam content more sensitive and trauma-aware. 

The collaboration is designed to reduce the risk of re-traumatising grieving students during high-pressure assessments by ensuring exam questions are created with greater care and emotional awareness. 

Scotty’s is now calling on all UK awarding bodies to follow suit, urging a sector-wide commitment to creating assessments that are fair, safe, and mindful of the unique challenges faced by bereaved young people. 

Findings reveal the need for change 

New research from Scotty’s, involving 190 families, highlights the distressing impact of insensitive content in the classroom and during exams: 

  • 77% of children encountered lessons that directly related to their bereavement. 

  • 52% faced repeated exposure to upsetting content. 

  • Over 1 in 8 were confronted with distressing material in high-stakes exams such as GCSEs and A-levels. 

  • Fewer than 1 in 3 families felt their child’s school handled sensitive content with adequate care. 

Developing safer assessment materials  
To address this issue, over 100 of WJEC’s Subject Officers have received specialist training from Rob Ilett, Head of the STRIDES education and personal development programme at Scotty’s. The training focuses on the academic and emotional impacts that triggering content can have on grieving students. 

Rob Ilett said: “WJEC embracing change in how examinations are written will have a significant impact on grieving young people being unfairly disadvantaged due to their bereavement. We hope that other exam boards will follow their lead and make conscious efforts to reduce the chance that children and young people will be re-traumatised by triggering questions during high stakes examinations” 

Sally Melhuish, Assistant Director for Assessment Quality and Design at WJEC, added: 

“WJEC is proud to be working in partnership with Scotty’s Little Soldiers to make assessments more emotionally safe for all learners. As one of the UK’s leading awarding bodies, we recognise the profound impact trauma and adversity can have on young people. That’s why we’re taking meaningful steps to educate teams involved in the production of our assessments and qualifications.  

With the expert guidance of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, we’ve strengthened our approach to developing inclusive and accessible assessments — ensuring every learner has the opportunity to demonstrate what they know, understand and can do, in a supportive and emotionally safe environment.”  

To learn more about WJEC’s approach to the development of assessment materials, take a look at our bespoke web area.