EDUCATION
EDUCATION
CONSULTANTS Helping to navigate education reform
Much has changed in the UK education system in recent years. School assessment and final-exam systems have been overhauled, and there is increasing pressure on families to make the right school choices for future university admission. Rebecca Marriage explores the value of engaging a consultant to help navigate the complex and evolving education landscape and to ensure that families understand the implications of their choice of school.
T
he UK’s education system is in a period of significant reform. Secondary-school qualifications are experiencing a massive overhaul, primary-school assessments are undergoing
some of the biggest changes in years, and the government’s school performance tables are changing the criteria by which the quality of schools is judged. Coupled with the adapted university admissions procedures
in response to exam reform and the increasing number of high- achieving applicants to university, these reforms mean that globally mobile families considering the future implications of their education choices have their work cut out for them.
Changes to primary-school assessment This year has seen the first cohort of primary-school children to sit the new standard assessment tests (SATs), which have been redesigned to be more challenging and, the UK government claims,
will result, at the end of primary school, in a ‘precise score’ by which families can judge how well a school is performing. Children in the last year of primary school in 2016 have
been tested for the first time in the new Spelling and Grammar (SPaG) curriculum. The new curriculum has proved to be hugely controversial among education leaders and teaching unions, who have criticised the test for being unnecessarily challenging and inappropriate for ten- and 11-year-olds. At Key Stage 1, the test was abandoned altogether this year, owing to an online leak of the test paper.
Post-16 exam reform Likewise, post-16 exams in UK schools (GCSE and AS/A Level) are undergoing a transformation. Curriculum and exam content has become more demanding, and examinations have moved to a linear structure, meaning that assessment will be mainly by
60 | Re:locate | Summer 2016
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