It has been heart-breaking this week to hear stories of young people who’ve had their futures thrown into turmoil because their SQA results were unjustly downgraded.

This is a massive injustice which the Scottish Government must quickly put right.

It’s a scandal that learners have seen their hard work and their teachers’ judgements rubbished, just so that overall results can fit neatly on a year-on-year graph, and it’s an outrage that this has disproportionately impacted children in our most deprived communities.

The SQA was warned about this but repeatedly refused requests to ‘show their working’ before results day.

Even worse, they accused Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer of being ‘speculative and unhelpful’ in raising concerns, despite knowing he was right all along.

But the greatest concern of all is that, despite Nicola Sturgeon making it her Government’s defining mission to close the so-called poverty-related attainment gap, it has failed to deliver anything like meaningful change.

In truth, we’ve always had a privilege gap, in which those with the means to, can make choices that benefit their children at the expense of others, and our exam system just reinforces that.

The First Minister points to the appeals process but that is not enough. Appeals are another layer of stress and anxiety.

Those who are already worn down by the system may not have any fight left in them. The absolute minimum the Government should do now is to agree to the Greens’ call for a no detriment policy.

But we must also seize this moment for a complete overhaul of how we assess learning.

In defending the SQA, the Government is left defending a system which everyone can now see is wrong, because it accepts the many advantages enjoyed by the most affluent as somehow okay.

We should move away from a crude, grade-based system which measures how one person’s performance in a high-stakes test compares with their direct peers and with past cohorts, to one which is based on a detailed, continuously-assessed, curriculum-linked record of what learners can do.

We do this kind of person-centred assessment for four-year-olds. My son, who starts P1 next week, has a detailed transition report from his nursery, combining professional judgement and parental input, which sets out clearly what he can do, with and without support. If we can come together around a better approach to assessment at every level, then perhaps some good can still come from this fiasco.

Meanwhile, Glasgow City Council met online for the first time ever last week.

Our first meeting in six months was an important moment to show gratitude and remembrance for those on the front line of the coronavirus crisis. But sadly much of the meeting saw SNP, Labour and Tory members - including group leaders and those with leadership pretensions - treating each other and the voters with contempt.

In contrast, Green councillors pressed for Glasgow’s coronavirus response to also deliver on the climate and ecological emergencies, including action on car-free schools which we’ve campaigned for.

Our focus is to ensure the greener and fairer renewal Glasgow needs right now.

It’s time other parties realised we won’t build a new normal with the same old gutter politics.