VIEWS & OPINION


Reduce teacher stress by abolishing ‘teaching to the test’


Comment by STEPHEN CALDWELL, Director of Education and Founder of Impress Education


When asked how many marks this would receive, most students say one or two. According to the former AQA Senior Examiner who marked the whole Q5 response, it is actually four: marks are awarded for the power of repeated questions, the exclamation point hinting at the speaker’s personality, the power of the cryptic reinforced by the ellipsis, and even a mark simply for not attributing the dialogue. Indeed, the Examiner added that were the last line included again at the end of the whole response, there would be a fifth mark awarded for the circular ending.


This would surprise most teachers, to say nothing of their students. When it comes to examinations, knowledge is power. Breaking down the marking scheme in this way is liberating for both teachers and students. Peering behind the curtain removes the fear associated with the unknown.


The teacher strikes have thrown the sector into turmoil, with no end yet in sight. There is a web of complex reasons for this; one being that while teacher’s wages may have stagnated over the past several decades, their list of responsibilities has not. In the past, educators were expected to teach the syllabus and ensure their students achieved the highest possible grades, smoothing their path to university and a stable career. Now they are tasked with providing pastoral and wellbeing support, administration, endless record-keeping and reporting, career guidance, and impressing Ofsted every four years – all while still boosting attainment, at all costs.


As a teacher, I saw firsthand how fear paralyses students in the lead up to exams. This has the poisoning effect of being extremely detrimental to their mental health, while inhibiting their ability to learn at the same time.


But students aren’t the only ones who suffer in this climate of fear. It also impacts the teachers, who desperately want to help and alleviate their anxiety, while also meeting the school’s expectations of increased attainment. The end result: students cram, teachers ‘teach to the test’, but both methods ultimately fail to meaningfully improve grades.


As a former teacher and examiner, I could help my pupils prepare for their exams with a laser insight into what their examinations actually required of them. However, within the wider profession, I observed a fundamental disconnect between these very different mindsets.


This was not always the case. Teachers used to meet regularly with examiners. Examiners would visit schools to explain how the exam papers are structured, how grading systems worked and what examiners are looking for. It was commonplace for teachers to train as examiners themselves, a practice now the exception rather than the norm.


Regaining this insight is essential to alleviating the pressure around exams and regaining capacity in a stressed and burnt-out workforce. Specialist support and intervention can bridge this knowledge gap, ensuring teachers and students use Examiner’s insights to meet and exceed examiners’ expectations.


Students and teachers both hold common misconceptions about examinations. A specialist can debunk these and methodically demonstrate how the marking scheme can be broken down to achieve maximum points.


For example, a popular misconception in Creative Writing exam papers is that writing more will earn pupils more marks. This could not be further from the truth. To debunk this myth, I use this example of opening a story with four lines of unattributed dialogue: “Where’s mummy?” “Not here!”


“When will I see her again?” “Only when you close your eyes”


March 2023


An examiner’s insight is equally vital in less ‘subjective’ subjects like Maths. Maths students will often grow first impatient, and then disheartened when unable to arrive at an immediate answer, and finally tempted to abandon their efforts altogether. Yet to an examiner, the answer represents only a small fraction of a question. It is primarily the thought process and the knowledge it demonstrates that is being tested.


With this insight, pupils can begin with what they know: label the diagram and engage with the material without worrying about the question. By finding the first step, then the second, the path to the answer will eventually reveal itself. Pupils can learn how each mark is awarded, but also that the answer is a small fraction of the question. Breaking down component knowledge and exploring how marks are allocated is a very different skill to covering the syllabus. But it transforms classroom learning, maximising exam marks and creating resilient, confident writers and mathematicians.


In an era of high-stakes exam results where a school’s results are decisive, covering the curriculum is only half the teacher’s battle. The rest is revision – and here, too, teachers are flying blind while burdened by the weight of expectation. This also means practice can vary wildly between schools and departments, with mixed outcomes for pupils.


Cramming never achieves the desired result of increasing attainment, though it is excellent for increasing stress and anxiety. But without an examiner’s insight, it is perfectly natural to turn to the syllabus, hoping that memorising a term of content will prepare them to enter the examination hall and confront the unknown. Schools can achieve far better outcomes by giving teachers and Heads of Department expert support to develop tailored revision programmes and Question Level Analysis. Successful revision should not centre on memorising facts. It is not possible to memorise everything, and trying to do so only promotes fear of failure. Rather, revision should consolidate the learning teachers have delivered and promote confidence in pupils applying this knowledge in the exam. Expert support and resources for teachers in the lead up to examinations saves time and builds capacity, right when they need it the most. This kind of support can take many forms depending on a school’s needs: student masterclasses delivered by an expert examiner, guided lessons, targeted interventions, CPD for teachers or guided curriculum content for students to study independently. Guided lessons and resources are particularly good capacity-builders: they can be set as homework before covering a topic, broken down and used in class to add to lesson content, or even used as meaningful cover during strikes or teacher absences. As examiner training falls out of fashion, restoring this lost knowledge is vital to teachers’ success. The strikes have made it clear that we cannot keep piling more responsibilities onto teacher’s plates; the ones already there are falling off and rolling under the table. It’s time for the rest of the education sector to step in and share the load.


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