FEATURE: EXAMS


throughout the year, rather than formal exams at the end of several years’ study. These can help promote engagement throughout a course of study rather than relying on students


whether this is happening, but there is certainly scope for improvement. Tim argues that we need stronger forms of assessment, brilliant questions which challenge students to provide the highest quality of work. This doesn’t mean getting rid of the traditional formal exams at the end of the course of study, but instead integrating these questions into how we teach. Allied to this, we need real improvement in


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Dame Alison Peacock Dame Alison stressed her belief that it is vital to understand exactly what we are trying to accomplish with assessment, whether it is about seeing where students are in their learning or just how much temporary knowledge they have managed to gain. Her view was that, too often with assessment,


chasing exam grades becomes the ultimate goal instead of working with the student and seeing what they have truly learned. As student and school chase grades and obsess over league tables, we lose sight of what we are actually looking for with assessment. Instead, assessment should be seen as a


supportive element of teaching, rather than a form of judgement. Teachers absolutely should have the highest expectations of their students, but in terms of how much they can learn instead of just what grades they can record. We can then build a culture of opportunity across schools, creating an ethos where everybody is included and encouraged to learn. If anything, this means that we need more


assessment, rather than less. But this would be low stakes assessment, a chance to find out what students have learned and where they have gaps in their knowledge. Dame Alison pointed out that this would mean


fewer opportunities for high stakes assessment, which, over time has become clouded in attempting to serve too many masters. Traditional exams provide the outcome for the student, the outcome for their cohort, judgements on individual teacher’s performances and the standing of the school against local and national counterparts. Instead, we should look at a system of


assessment which focuses on the individual, helping them build their capacity to learn instead of just judging them on what they don’t know. This then becomes about transforming the teacher’s expectations of the student, learning more about how we can help them exceed where they currently are, and go on to excel. This is less radical than it sounds - teachers do


this every day without even thinking about it. Setting an exercise to see how much the class knows about a particular topic, using that to inform their teaching over the coming days, and then testing again to see how much of that knowledge has stuck – this is nothing more than low stakes assessment to track their students’ understanding. This is as central to our concept of assessment


as any formal tests but is so often overlooked in conversations about the exam landscape. Dame Alison concluded that this summer’s


teacher-assessed grades may be the perfect launchpad to move to a system of mini-tests


May 2021 Image: MyTutor


Tim Oates CBE On the other hand, Tim Oates was far more cautious on talk of radically reshaping the exam system. There is real danger in using the changed circumstances this summer as the basis for systematic change which may well not be evidence-based. He believes that change for change’s sake


would be detrimental to the improvements we have seen over recent years. Constant change prevents teachers from focusing on the preparation of brilliant lessons, which is crucial to providing a great education. Looking at our system in the past there is clear evidence showing that every time we change qualifications there is a dip in the performance of the education system as a whole. Change must be managed carefully, and done


at the right times, responding to the right evidence. So if we are to change how we approach assessment we must be clear on why we are doing it, and what we are hoping to achieve. We need to agree on a set of principles for future assessment, regardless of what exams look like. Because at their core, exams are a means of


assessing how much knowledge students have been able to absorb, understand, and remember. Despite the calls for change, Tim believes that England is very good at this – as reflected in the PISA results – and is continuing to improve. Tim also highlighted the role that schools play


within society: education at its core is about very efficiently gaining the accumulation of human knowledge, and schools are well designed to ensure this happens for students. Instead of focusing on changing the system, he


believes we need to work on supporting students to recover learning lost during the pandemic. This is the real opportunity we have in front of us, as if we do this correctly then we have the chance to reach higher standards than would have been the case had the pandemic not occurred. There are clear systems we can put in place


here, such as 1:1 diagnosis and support regarding learning loss, concentrated programmes to consolidate knowledge and accelerate further learning, and re-integrating students into education as seamlessly as possible, monitoring their learning and immediately addressing misconceptions. Our current exam system allows us to check


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how we use the data from assessment. Most high performing education systems have accountability as a central facet, but we shouldn’t just consider exams as a means of scoring students. Instead, Tim’s belief is we should use their findings to learn more about what students understand and where misconceptions lie, and then use this to inform our teaching further. Issues arise when the scores from exams become more important than the record of what has been learned and what still needs to be understood.


Conclusion There is no question that there is appetite for change in how we approach exams, not just this year but for the future. Before the pandemic, people looked at our


education system and saw it as too big to change. But now we have to think about whether we go back to what we had before, or whether this is our opportunity to bring in a new model which could better support students. There is fierce debate over what system of


assessment is best for our students, whether we move to low stakes testing over traditional formal exams or incorporate demanding questions into regular teaching. These come down to the question of what we hope to achieve with our assessment system; are we testing how much students know at the end of their course of student or helping them identify gaps in their knowledge while continuing to learn? What is clear, is that this summer offers us a


unique opportunity to see how students and schools react to a new form of assessment. While we could move back to the old model after this, it would be a shame if we do so by default, rather than looking to see how it could be improved. There are ideas on how to improve our exam system from across the education sector, so it is worth serious consideration into what works best for our students.


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