ePolitix speaks to Graham Herbert of the IEA about improving assessment conditions for teachers and learners.

Question: Who are your members and how do you support them in their role?

Graham Herbert: Members are teachers, both primary and secondary, although mainly secondary at the moment. We are attempting to make inroads into the primary education sector and we have quite a lot of primary teachers as members, but not as many as secondary ones.

We have lecturers, external examiners, moderators and people involved in the whole assessment community. So members are a complete mixture of all those people who assess learners and not just those who assess children but adults as well.

We have some members who work in other professional associations, like the Chartered Institute of Marketing for example, and we have assessors there who assess people for their professional qualifications. It is a community that has assessment at its heart and is not just about qualifications.

Question: How important is the role of assessors in maintaining confidence in the exams system?

Graham Herbert: Firstly our efforts are not just aimed at exams; our efforts are aimed at assessment in the round. Maintaining confidence in the exam system is something we want to do but it is only one part of our role.

I want people not to just think about exams, but the whole of assessment. If you have effective assessment it means your teaching is more focused and if your teaching is more focused, the learner learns more and it is like a virtuous circle.

Question: How important is assessment for pupils, is there too much of it?

Graham Herbert: Again, assessment is something that happens everyday. Whilst I am talking, you will be making an assessment of me whether I like it or not and whilst you are responding to me I am making an assessment of you, whether you like it or not. I am thinking 'have I made my point forcefully enough' and so on.

So in that sense, there is not too much assessment, and the point I want to make is that it is not just about external assessment but all forms of everyday assessment.

Question: You have produced a brochure with information about the Institute for Newly Qualified Teachers. How does assessment affect teachers?

Graham Herbert: I don't think young teachers have sufficient tools to assess effectively, and by tools, I mean skills. Partly because initial teacher training can only brush the surface of the complexities of assessment, and partly because there simply isn't the time in the normal round of things, in a PGCE course or even a BEd course, to bottom out the impact of assessment.

Much of a newly qualified teacher's skills in assessment depends on the school in which they work. If that practice is inconsistent, they will pick up skills inconsistently.

The last three Ofsted reports have highlighted the inconsistencies of assessment across the whole of England and this is one of the key issues in the report. What we hope to address is that skills gap. I am not blaming universities or teacher training establishments; they simply don't have the time to make improvements.

But if assessment skills are improved, as I said earlier, the important effect is on teaching because teaching is more focused, and if teaching is more focused, learning is better.

Question: Why did the institute propose the establishment of a Chartered Educational Assessor?

Graham Herbert: The chartered status will confer the highest standards upon a select few people who assess; so both examiners and those who assess in schools. We see it as being reflective of the same status as chartered engineers or chartered accountants.

It is supported by a code of ethical practices that can be challenged and monitored in the same way as a chartered engineer or surveyor. What we want to do is to confer the highest standards of professional behaviour on the people who in fact observe those very high standards of professional behaviour.

Question: What other steps can be taken to improve educational assessment?

Graham Herbert: We think it needs very focused continuous professional development. To support this we have developed what we call a framework for assessment, which breaks down the number of activities that take place during assessment, preparing it, conducting it, and feeding back after it. We break that down into a number of activities where people can either say 'yes they are doing it appropriately' or they can get the CPD to help them improve their skill levels.

This is what we see as the basis for the IEA, namely offering continuous professional development to all those who assess.  

Question: Does the IEA have a view on the role of different organisations in setting exams and ensuring their integrity?

Graham Herbert: No, I would not question the integrity of any of the awarding bodies who set exams. They are regulated by QCA, which is a very effective regulatory tool and I would not question their integrity at all.

Question: What impact will raising the minimum school leaving age to 18, as the government has proposed, have on educational assessment?

Graham Herbert: It means there will be more of it! This is an issue because if there is more assessment, there will be more marking to do and we have to consider whether or not we have sufficient people to carry out increased numbers of assessments both internally and externally. We also have to consider if the assessment community is at an appropriate skill level to carry out the assessments needed if the minimum leaving age is raised. These are my concerns.

Question: Do you feel the government listens to what you have to say as an organisation?

Graham Herbert: They do listen, they don't always act, but I have no complaints about their listening. They ask us to submit to consultation documents and to the select committee, they ask for our views on a variety of issues. I don't think listening is an error that government has.

We have a very close relationship with government. The chartered status was conferred on us because of the involvement of the then secretary of state, Alan Johnson, who sponsored our application through Privy Council. The incumbent did not reject that support or withdraw it, and so Ed Balls was also part of the process and they are very supportive of the IEA.

Question: What are the Institute's key concerns in the run-up to the main summer exam season in 2008?

Graham Herbert: There are no real concerns about the summer exam season. What is an issue is the implementation of the educational reforms, particularly as they affect the assessment of the new diploma, which will begin in September 2008.

They also affect the assessment of the single level tests and how that initiative will be rolled out nationally, and the assessment of the restructured A-Levels and functional skills. How those will roll out at the moment is debateable, if the government goes down the line of more and more external examinations to validate assessments, this will be an issue.

Clearly written into the diploma proposals is the fact that great chunks of assessment should be 'local' in nature. This is the word they have used rather than 'internal' and this can't be validated by anything other than someone assessing the processes of what goes on rather than quality controlling the outputs. That would mean an awarding body quality controlling all of the outputs and the awarding bodies have neither the resources nor the time to do it.

Therefore, I hope the government will back the IEA's proposals that the consortium of schools and their internal assessment regimes should be validated by a chartered educational assessor. Those are my concerns; they go beyond 2008 and impact upon all of the government reforms.

Question: Do you have any final messages for ePolitix readers?

Graham Herbert: We see that very virtuous triumvirate as something we want to promote; the triumvirate of effective assessment feeding into more focused teaching producing a more personalised curriculum for learners.

What I would ideally want the government to move towards would be smarter assessments and a personalisation of the curriculum in line with its own policy. To develop that personalised curriculum, we will need much smarter assessment skills amongst teachers and lecturers, and a regime that is somewhat different from the one we have now that is based upon quality control rather than quality assurance.