Irvine Royal pupils had more of their grades unfairly lowered by the SQA than any other school in the area during this Summer’s fiasco.

New school-by-school figures show the approach was particularly unfair on young people in the most deprived communities.

The system of ‘moderating’ estimated grades submitted by teachers unfairly disadvantaged pupils at schools with lower historical records, regardless of the individual pupil’s own achievement.

Irvine Royal saw 38.8 per cent of grades lowered, and 20.5 per cent of highers were adjusted from pass to fail and Greenwood Academy had 38.2 per cent lowered and 14.6 per cent adjusted to fail.

Kilwinning Academy had 33.5 per cent grades were lowered with 16.1 adjusted to a fail while St Matthew’s Academy 27.9 per cent lowered and 15.5 per cent then adjusted from pass to fail.

These grades were raised again after a fierce backlash from pupils, teachers and parents.

Green MSP Ross Greer said: “These figures reveal just how unfair this system was. Pupils at Irvine Royal and across the country were treated like statistics rather than people and judged more on their postcode than their abilities.”