The number of public examinations taken by teenagers should be severely cut back in a shift towards "internal assessment" by teachers and as part of an over-arching new diploma, a government working group will tell ministers next month.
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education
Dr Gordon Stobart, reader in education at the Institute of Education and convenor of the Assessment Reform Group, said: "More teacher assessment and fewer examinations' makes a good slogan and offers the encouraging prospect of replacing narrow teaching-to-the-test with a more engaging curriculum.
"But if teacher assessment is going to be used in the same 'high stakes' ways as GCSE results, it will be easily undermined. So as well as re-thinking the form of assessment, we need to rethink its purpose.
"Subdividing A grades is an elegantly simple solution to differentiating between the most able students.
"But the number of sub-grades must be limited to three, because increasing the number of grades decreases their reliability: the more grades there are, the easier it is to be given the wrong grade as a result of such factors as marker inconsistencies.
"Purely reporting pupils' marks would be a worse idea, as these could be even less reliable.
"The use of separate aptitude tests, such as American SATs, to pick up talented but disadvantaged students is a wasteful fantasy, as evidence shows that there is little difference between performance in these tests and performance in A Levels.
"If you’ve had privileged teaching, you’ll do better on these, too.
"We need to look for more imaginative ways of identifying potential than yet another test."
Stakeholder Response: Professional Association of Teachers
Jean Gemmell PAT general secretary said: "We would welcome fewer exams and more teacher assessment, with greater professional freedom for teachers to be able to teach according to their students’ needs and abilities.
"Tests are putting pupils under increased stress and they don’t give the best measure of students’ ability.
"Testing places extra stress on teachers and parents too.
"Greater use of teacher assessment would allow teachers to educate pupils, rather than teach them to pass exams, and give a much more accurate picture of their educational development.
"Teachers are trained to assess, and assessment supports learning.
"Our 2,000 survey, 'Tested to Destruction?: a survey of examination stress in teenagers', revealed that young people between five and 18 were likely to have undergone over 100 public examinations. That is too many.
"PAT has been calling for a broader, more flexible curriculum, with more options for vocational subjects, that can develop the skills and meet the needs and aspirations of all students.
"We hope that the new Diploma structure will be a bold move in that direction."
