FEATURE: EXAMS
Shaping the future: how could the lack of formal exams this summer change the assessment landscape?
Image: MyTutor W
ith GCSE’s and A-Levels replaced this year by teacher- and centre-assessed
grades, James Grant, Co-founder of MyTutor, looks at the issues this throws up, in particular whether the Government should be planning a return to formal assessment through exams or whether there are in fact better alternatives which would benefit schools and students; and asks educational experts Dame Alison Peacock and Tim Oates CBE how they see exams developing in the future. Last year, students’ grades were decided by the infamous algorithm, a decision which caused significant controversy. Although uncertainty over what would happen this year was somewhat cleared by the announcement that teacher assessment would be the primary factor in granting grades, it meant that there would be at least two consecutive years without traditional formal exams at GCSE and A-Level. This has led many in the education sector to
ask the question whether, once life has returned to normal, we should rush to return to traditional
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assessment through exams. We wanted to know what teachers themselves
thought about this issue, and so asked the team at TeacherTapp to survey their users on whether the Government should consider reforming GCSE and A-level assessment. The results were clear, with two thirds of
secondary teachers in favour of considering reforming these exams, and more than 80% of headteachers voting in favour. But this question was rooted in concerns
around the pandemic, and the practicalities of actually holding exams. We wanted to know more about what schools should be looking to achieve with assessment, what a new model could look like, how we ensure this remains fair, and what this could mean for students. That’s why we spoke to two renowned
educational experts: Dame Alison Peacock from the Chartered College of Teaching, and Tim Oates from Cambridge Assessment. They each talked about how they saw exams developing in the future, and what we should be looking to achieve through our assessment systems.
May 2021
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