WEBVTT

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I think this then becomes perhaps the most interesting part of the debate.

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I can't resist starting with my favourite quote.

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It has now become clear that public opinion in England was disposed to put quite an excessive reliance

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upon the system of competitive examination as a panacea for educational delinquencies or defects.

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Examinations as ends in themselves have occupied too much of the thoughts of parents and teachers.

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Their very convenience and success led to their undue multiplication

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and to their occupying too large a place in the system of national education.

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From the 1911 report of the Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools.

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So this is by no means a very new debate,

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but we are perhaps a tad closer to finding some of the answers.

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So, I thought we'd kick off with a nice...

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We now have a fair number of questions some of which I will read out some of which I will actually call the person to speak to You will be pleased to know we have over 700 people watching us online many of whom are already sending in questions and comments as well

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Now I thought we might start with an online point, which, just to throw that open to everybody,

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questions related to

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do we agree that the control and implementation of standards

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cannot effectively ensure to be unbiased and impartial

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when provided for by a transient government

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or their bodies lacking educational expertise

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we've had a number of those sorts of things

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would anybody like to pick up on the interesting question

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at what role the state has in all of this

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whether they're driving up standards or pretending to drive up standards, whether they should

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be engaged in this matter in any way whatsoever Many people would say that it is the role of the state to set goals but how we achieve them is up to us Does anybody want to pick that up or do you want to start the conversation somewhere completely differently

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Yes.

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Sorry, back. Can we stand and can we give our name and our institution?

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And for the purposes of the transcript, if you get asked again, can you repeat your name? Thank you.

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Amanda Spielman from ARC Schools.

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As you know, I just contributed to the Sykes Review report on this very subject,

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so I'd like to bring up what we said,

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which is we think the state has a very limited role in relation to the core subjects

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where there is a need to create, we think, a need to create a clear consensus on minimum standards,

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not necessarily on what constitutes every grade of achievement,

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but what constitutes minimum standards for the main purposes.

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but we would not see that extending out across all the range of subjects, disciplines that can be assessed.

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Sorry Amanda when you say standards as we started off Tim started off we talked about content standards at this point So the state has a role in setting minimum content standards

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Okay.

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Anybody else like to pick that up?

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Yes, at the back.

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David Howe, Enterprise UK.

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I'm not entirely sure that I actually agree with that.

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I'm not even sure they have a role there.

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surely their job is to facilitate a professional dialogue

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between the education world and the employer world

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in terms of meeting needs

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and to ensure that is actually happening and is going somewhere.

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The fact that a government is in a position

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to even define minimum standards here,

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I'm not sure is actually relevant

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because I would argue that many politicians

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sometimes simplify this very debate we're having today

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around to one-line comments for the evening news

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or the tabloid front pages next day

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and the kind of level of debate that we're engaged in today

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and the complexity is something which is actually beyond,

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as far as I can see, beyond most politicians.

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So I'd argue that I don't even know

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if government actually has a role in actually defining those standards.

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I think they have much more of a role of ensuring

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that there is debate and there is a meeting of minds, as it were,

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on meetings going on between various bodies that are actually interested in this

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and ensuring that it actually comes out with something.

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Okay. Anybody else?

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I'm reminded in the 1850s the government said they didn't need to supply an examiner

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to the very first board because they thought we could do it ourselves

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and didn't need state intervention. Yes, sir.

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And there's somebody over there.

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Andrew Holland, Examination Officers Association.

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As you know, there are three parts of the education system,

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the teaching and learning, the delivery of public exams,

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and the assessment part.

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The debate that affects the delivery of exams in the country,

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we feel is not about standards but about expectations,

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the expectations that are placed upon students

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and the expectations placed upon the exam system and certainly looking around the room at educationalists awarding bodies and so on really it comes back to Gordon comment right at the very beginning is a thing fit for purpose

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And that's really a focus on this debate, not just on standards, but the expectations of what that system is supposed to deliver.

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Yes.

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I'm Isabel Nisbet from Ofqual.

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and we're a little limited in what we're able to say today but I just wanted to say that there is

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a regulatory role for the state which is different from the ministerial government role and including

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in the Sykes report there are various views of how that could be exercised but there's a common

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theme about assuring the currency of the assessments or the qualifications or the tests

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and the debate is whether the degree to which some arm of the state other than government can do that

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and the alternative could be a very mixed market where historically students have had to guess

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among a very varied set of offerings without any reliability of the currency with which these were being measured So there is a regulatory debate around this We are listening very hard to what people are

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saying today and we'll be talking to many of you after the 6th of May.

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Thank you. Simon Liebus down the front row please.

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Simon Liebus, Cambridge Assessment. I'd just like briefly to respond to what Isabel said

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about the role of the regulator.

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I think there is a very important regulatory role

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in terms of a sort of weights and measures type function.

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But I think one of the difficulties

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and one of the reasons we're having this sort of discussion

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is although I think we've, in a sense,

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got on top of the measurement science,

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we haven't got on top of what is being measured.

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And I think one of the reasons for that

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comes back to some of the comments that were being made earlier

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about the divorce between awarding bodies, schools, and HE.

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And the reason that divorce has occurred

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is that there's a large regulatory and political

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apparatus that's inserted itself in the

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relationship and as it were disintermediated those groups And I think quite a lot of the challenge is in making sure that offqual all the regulatory arrangements are focused on weights and measures and that some of this emphasis on curriculum and curriculum development

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is as a result of an

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unmediated discussion between HE

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between awarding bodies and schools

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which interestingly

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takes us to

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Ian Glossop

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who's watching online

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where he lumps everybody together

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isn't the problem not the lack of public understanding

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they understand just fine, thank you

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but the failure of the awarding bodies and their political masters

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in which I also include regulatory

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to justify their claims with objective data

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which I think goes to the heart of the entire prospect

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because you were talking about the gentleman back there

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talking about instant media responses by political masters

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is the fault that we're not actually giving the public

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and or the users of exams, AG, enough data?

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for the purposes of using them.

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Yes, sir.

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Greg Brooks, Emeritus, University of Sheffield.

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In the interests of introducing some data into the discussion,

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I wonder if I might indulge myself for about two minutes

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in summarising the work that my Sheffield colleague here,

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Sammy Rashid, and I have done.

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We've collected together and analysed all the data

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on the literacy and numeracy levels of attainment of 13 to 19-year-olds in England

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from the very first national survey of the reading levels of 15-year-olds in 1948 up to last year.

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It's quite a long story, so I won't try to read it all out to you.

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The short story is that there appears to have been a rise in the average level of reading attainment of 15 between 1948 and 60 and then in both reading and then writing when it came on international surveys and numeracy

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a long plateau when average levels of attainment barely shifted,

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other than in very small details.

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But in about the last 15 years,

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there have been steady and in some areas substantial rises

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in the numbers of young people, percentages of young people,

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reaching particular levels or above in vocabulary and maths at age 14,

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in key stage 3 English and maths, and in GCSE English and maths.

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And those are substantial achievements in the system.

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They mean that, amongst other things, the top levels of attainment of young people in

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our country are amongst the best in the world At the other end of the scale there is we think a problem Namely that about 17 of young people have less than functional literacy I talking here about

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16 to 19 year olds. And about 22% of them have less than functional numeracy. And that

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really is a problem for the system and there need to be measures to reduce those tales

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of underachievement. Thank you.

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Roger, you wanted to come in on that?

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Yeah, if I may. This is a familiar bit of the debate where people say, oh goodness, can't

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we just have a simple answer to this question? Can't the awarding bodies give us the data

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to see whether exams have got easier or not? It's a fair enough question to ask, but the

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problem is more complicated than that. And there's no shortage of data. There's a huge

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wealth of data like the stuff that Greg's talking about. The awarding bodies themselves

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have done huge amounts of research into comparability issues The problem is in the question as we said already today that the question is never as simple as it seems And if people are interested in standards over time they asking about a very complicated

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set of issues. If you want to compare A-level standards in 1950 when they first came into

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standards now, so much has changed, as we've been saying this morning, that it's not a

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simple question. It's a very complicated question, and so it's no good saying to the awarding

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bodies, try a bit harder and come out with the data to answer the question. The question

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is too complex to have a simple answer.

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Just one thing, I think on that point,

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I don't think people are interested in,

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I mean they are interested because it's become a sort of pop quiz question,

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but whether this year's A-level is comparable to 10 years ago.

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I think people are interested in how educated people are.

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The bottom line is, are people better educated?

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Are education levels the same?

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or are they worse educated?

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And that's what we need to get to.

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And that's why I think comparability

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doesn't really answer the question

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because it's not going to tell us

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partly because in order to find out whether people are better educated for today,

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that's going to mean slightly different criteria.

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Yes, I'm going to slide over what constitutes better.

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At the back there, and then down near the front on the left-hand side.

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Hello, just a quick response to the last comment from Professor Roger Murphy.

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I'm sorry, you are?

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My name is Christine Fracek.

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I'm a project manager with the Scottish Qualifications Authority,

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if you haven't already guessed.

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just to say that in terms of making data more accessible to the public and to our candidates

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to our practitioners i think it's something that we're engaged in very very strongly and you if

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you look at any of the websites of any of the awarding bodies you'll see more and more guidance

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guidance that we give to the markers to the examiners the principal assessors how we set

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grade boundaries, it's all out there.

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But where I would say that it a work in progress is that we have to give without being patronising it quite a technical area we have to give more help in explaining the relevance of the data

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For example, the Scottish Qualifications Authority provides the Scottish Government

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with masses of attainment data, which is broken down by all sorts of characteristics,

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background, ethnicity, and this is a wonderful publication that comes out every year,

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but it goes from the Scottish Qualifications Authority,

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the data, into the Scottish Government

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and it's making the loops back to the authority,

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to the awarding bodies,

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so that we produce the data,

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we then use it to effect change.

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And I think it's a work in progress.

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I think more guidance is required.

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And also I would accept that perhaps

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where we're slightly weak,

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and again have to focus on this,

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is analysing the data.

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You can produce uptake statistics and we all do awarding bodies If you look at we all have our Excel spreadsheets and you see masses and masses of attainment data performance data but it not everybody cup of tea to be honest

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And just putting that into more plain English, here's the data, this is what we think it means,

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come back and comment, and how can we make it clearer?

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Anyway, that's the point.

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Thank you. There was a lady in the middle there.

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Tandy Clausen May, and I don't belong to anybody. I'm independent.

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The public understanding of assessment, I think it was Roger Murphy.

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Sorry, could you speak up just a time ago?

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Sorry. Roger Murphy said that it's not that good, and if it were, then we'd actually have a problem.

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If the public understood that if the same student took the same test on a different day let alone a different test in a different year they would be likely to get a different result If the public really understood that then we lose their faith

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And I think an awful lot of things would come crashing down.

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People would get very cross because they didn't get into university.

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And if they'd happened to take the test on a different day,

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they probably would have got into university.

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I don't think we can afford to allow the public

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to really understand what we do.

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A fair point.

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Simone Aspis, would you like to...

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Because your comment is relevant here.

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My name's Simone Aspis.

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I'm a PhD student in education at King's College,

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and I'm also the Alliance for Inclusive Education,

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Campaigns and Policy Coordinator.

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I'm interested in the whole debate around standards today.

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I wonder whether the issue isn't about the actual standards

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themselves, but more to do with the artificial value.

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that we put onto these standards, hence the brands of qualifications,

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MVQs, BTEC, GCSEs, etc., and the grades we give to particular standards.

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And if I can just, is there anything that we can learn from something like the Duke of England Award,

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where everybody attains differently, everybody attains differently,

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but everybody leaves with the same award.

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Everybody achieves at a different standard.

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So I just wondered whether there's anything that you think could be learnt from that as well.

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Right.

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Gentleman in the middle, followed by the lady at the back.

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Hello.

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It's Hugh Cuffin from 5S Consulting, mainly involved in occupational standards,

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but very interested in today's debate because I'm currently researching maths.

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What happens to people with maths qualifications after they leave school?

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I was picking up from the question that you asked and I handed one in which was Professor Murphy comment that two people getting a C at GCSE maths could have very very different experiences

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And I do accept that, you know, we're talking about approximations here, but that sounds like a lot too approximate, to be honest.

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And I think we know of very prominent officials within Sector Skills Council recently said employers have no confidence in the examination systems.

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and I think he was talking about GCSEs, A-levels and degrees.

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I think, I hope, that was a bit of exaggeration for the sake of effect

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because I think the situation is much more nuanced and complicated.

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But I think if we have a system where people come out, as it were,

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with some sort of stamp on their foreheads,

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there ought to be at least a certain amount of commonality of achievement

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reflected by whatever has been stamped on their foreheads, as it were.

00:18:42.787 --> 00:18:58.620
And I would say that something like the variability between say a C or GCSE maths a particularly good example is actually far too great And that one of the things that I would have thought the system does need to look at Lady at the back

00:19:01.860 --> 00:19:04.380
Hilary Phelps, Wycliffe College. I'm a teacher.

00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:12.140
I question the notion that the same student would get a different grade in many cases if they did the exam on another day.

00:19:12.600 --> 00:19:17.360
I teach psychology A-level and I've taught it for nearly 10 years now

00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:19.820
and I think the exams are quite cleverly designed

00:19:19.820 --> 00:19:21.980
to make sure they cover the whole syllabus

00:19:21.980 --> 00:19:24.700
and certainly in the upper ability range

00:19:24.700 --> 00:19:27.980
the children that I've taught, the youngsters I've taught

00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:29.720
will actually master the whole syllabus

00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:33.460
so whatever questions they get

00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:35.940
they'll be able to answer satisfactorily.

00:19:38.820 --> 00:19:40.820
Yes, right down the front here

00:19:40.820 --> 00:19:44.700
and then

00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:48.380
Thanks very much.

00:19:48.740 --> 00:20:03.793
Marion Gibbs I a head teacher James Allen Girl School in London and I did put a question in which sort of comes up here I just am so struck by the stress that the whole system is causing in schools to teachers and students and the fact that we now got

00:20:03.793 --> 00:20:09.853
an A star, it's another hoop to jump through. It is ridiculous to say that curriculum sets

00:20:09.853 --> 00:20:15.833
exams. We all know, I've been teaching about 35 years, I'm just wearing well, and I have

00:20:15.833 --> 00:20:20.173
been a chief examiner, all sorts of other things in my life. We all know that what happens

00:20:20.173 --> 00:20:25.133
is the new syllabuses come out, specimen papers come out and everything changes. And I'd love

00:20:25.133 --> 00:20:30.093
to mention the word commercial, but this isn't the moment in the debate to say that. I think

00:20:30.093 --> 00:20:37.913
it would be wonderful if someone were brave enough to say, we can't make exams have standards

00:20:37.913 --> 00:20:43.933
which are multi-purpose. Higher education wants something very different to employers

00:20:43.933 --> 00:20:48.713
and pupils, learners, students, teachers, parents

00:20:48.713 --> 00:20:52.633
want to enjoy doing what they're doing in school,

00:20:52.913 --> 00:20:55.853
having that validated and not just ending up

00:20:55.853 --> 00:20:59.333
with jumping through a few hoops on a tick sheet,

00:20:59.653 --> 00:21:01.133
as it were, and the rest of anything.

00:21:01.243 --> 00:21:06.303
they've done not being validated, which then means that in some schools you would actually

00:21:06.303 --> 00:21:11.403
end up reducing, as we've said. Can I just tell one little anecdote? We send lots of

00:21:11.403 --> 00:21:16.963
sixth formers into local state primary schools as part of their extended curriculum in Lambeth

00:21:16.963 --> 00:21:22.043
and Southwark. They do enrichment, they do music, drama, sport, all sorts of lovely things,

00:21:22.163 --> 00:21:25.843
and we've just received the first letters from the headteacher saying, next year, could

00:21:25.843 --> 00:21:30.783
your girls come in and actually coach them for the key stage two sats? We feel this would

00:21:30.783 --> 00:21:31.523
be a better use.

00:21:33.963 --> 00:21:40.403
And just before we move to Mike next, Sarah from Warwickshire says, I love learning and

00:21:40.403 --> 00:21:41.383
I'm a complete academic.

00:21:41.963 --> 00:21:46.383
However, at school there is no time for me to enjoy the subjects as a ridiculously heavy

00:21:46.383 --> 00:21:50.763
and extensively prescribed syllabus that I'm forced to cram in order to sit an exam.

00:21:51.543 --> 00:21:54.143
My exams in six weeks, I still have topics to be taught.

00:21:54.583 --> 00:21:57.763
There should be more emphasis on debating and discussing lessons rather than the race

00:21:57.763 --> 00:22:10.336
that it feels there is to learn everything for the next exam a cycle which is stressful and I sure as you pointed out uninspiring Mike Mike Baker columnist for The Guardian and the BBC

00:22:10.976 --> 00:22:12.176
Two questions, really.

00:22:12.476 --> 00:22:16.356
One, we haven't heard anything about comparing standards internationally so far today.

00:22:16.376 --> 00:22:18.416
If it's so difficult to compare standards over time,

00:22:18.736 --> 00:22:23.136
is it more valid and is it more valuable to compare standards across different countries?

00:22:23.736 --> 00:22:26.796
And the other question relates to all of the speakers seem to, in one way or another,

00:22:26.796 --> 00:22:29.336
put up a sign which says politicians keep out.

00:22:30.036 --> 00:22:32.416
But if the politicians are to keep out of qualification reform,

00:22:32.616 --> 00:22:33.736
who is to decide?

00:22:34.236 --> 00:22:36.656
Is it the teaching profession, in which case is it the NUT

00:22:36.656 --> 00:22:38.116
or the NASUWC or the ATL?

00:22:38.156 --> 00:22:38.896
They may not all agree.

00:22:39.276 --> 00:22:39.916
Is it academics?

00:22:40.116 --> 00:22:40.836
Is it employers?

00:22:41.316 --> 00:22:42.456
Is it the exam boards?

00:22:42.996 --> 00:22:44.716
There's so many people who could have a say

00:22:44.716 --> 00:22:46.816
and it could end up with an even bigger muddle

00:22:46.816 --> 00:22:48.396
than having the politicians in charge.

00:22:49.756 --> 00:22:52.156
Right, we've got two points there.

00:22:52.716 --> 00:22:54.756
Paul Muir, is he still here?

00:22:55.416 --> 00:22:56.756
Yes, at the very back.

00:22:56.796 --> 00:22:58.976
because you wanted to come in on much the same question.

00:22:59.076 --> 00:23:13.489
If we spend a little bit of time on international comparators I think and then possibly come back to who ought to be running it Paul Muir from PA Consulting We been doing some work in Saudi Arabia and Dubai looking at the curriculum reform

00:23:13.669 --> 00:23:15.389
and one of the things they used to look at

00:23:15.989 --> 00:23:18.529
obviously comparatives and standards is things like PISA and TIMS.

00:23:19.349 --> 00:23:21.289
So my question was around, my point was around,

00:23:21.469 --> 00:23:23.529
are they not good comparatives for us to look at

00:23:23.529 --> 00:23:26.569
in terms of looking at standards across countries

00:23:26.569 --> 00:23:27.989
in places like Finland and South Korea,

00:23:28.069 --> 00:23:31.609
which always held up as best practice and in doing well.

00:23:31.609 --> 00:23:35.009
So is that something we can look at in terms of standards?

00:23:35.349 --> 00:23:38.329
We have a lot of people who understand the technical side of things in the audience.

00:23:38.489 --> 00:23:39.989
Any one of them want to pick that one up?

00:23:42.069 --> 00:23:50.349
Or would you all prefer to move to, I think, Jeff Lucas is here from HMC.

00:23:51.149 --> 00:23:51.869
Jeff's still around?

00:23:52.209 --> 00:23:54.829
Oh, there he is, yes, down at the bottom.

00:23:56.169 --> 00:24:00.829
Who's suggesting norm referencing as a way out of all of these problems?

00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:15.521
I simply wondered what the panel view or indeed anyone who here view is given the difficulty the technical difficulties we had talking about maintaining standards over time between different subjects between different qualifications given

00:24:15.521 --> 00:24:17.661
that there's very much a lay

00:24:17.661 --> 00:24:19.381
perspective to this, how can the public

00:24:19.381 --> 00:24:20.881
understand a very complex system?

00:24:21.641 --> 00:24:23.341
Would there be some advantages in moving

00:24:23.341 --> 00:24:25.621
back to a system where the top 10%

00:24:25.621 --> 00:24:27.441
in any year, in any given subject

00:24:27.441 --> 00:24:29.461
get grade A, the next 10%

00:24:29.461 --> 00:24:31.701
get grade B, etc.?

00:24:31.701 --> 00:24:33.301
More focus, attention,

00:24:33.481 --> 00:24:34.941
time, effort would be put into

00:24:34.941 --> 00:24:39.581
getting the specifications right, getting the question papers right,

00:24:39.901 --> 00:24:41.881
and crucially, getting the marking right,

00:24:42.161 --> 00:24:44.481
it would take all the effort away from the awarding process,

00:24:44.601 --> 00:24:46.001
which would be pretty automatic.

00:24:46.401 --> 00:24:47.921
It would be publicly intelligible.

00:24:48.261 --> 00:24:50.921
I know the arguments against, such as that one year,

00:24:51.021 --> 00:24:55.501
the 1986 vintage might be totally different from the 2010,

00:24:56.061 --> 00:24:59.661
but I really don't think that's any more difficult to understand,

00:24:59.801 --> 00:25:02.721
in fact, it's easier, than the whole business of comparability

00:25:02.721 --> 00:25:05.501
over time and the other issues we've talked about.

00:25:05.501 --> 00:25:08.301
So is it time to reopen that?

00:25:08.301 --> 00:25:11.461
Well, as one who's trying to explain the UMS system,

00:25:11.461 --> 00:25:13.381
I would sort of agree, perhaps.

00:25:13.492 --> 00:25:17.912
Yes, first there, and then to Paul next.

00:25:18.192 --> 00:25:18.612
Thanks, Eric.

00:25:18.792 --> 00:25:22.172
Ben Jones, Assessments and Qualifications Alliance, AQA.

00:25:22.692 --> 00:25:24.732
I'd like to pick up on that last point.

00:25:26.052 --> 00:25:30.092
I think the first thing I'd like to say is that we talk about A-level standard.

00:25:30.092 --> 00:25:35.672
As far as it exists, the standard resides at subject level,

00:25:36.452 --> 00:25:41.632
and yet the decisions made to feed into that standard are made at unit level.

00:25:41.632 --> 00:25:44.892
So actually nobody knows what an A-level standard looks like

00:25:44.892 --> 00:25:47.272
because the examiners and the chairs just look at the unit.

00:25:48.472 --> 00:25:51.852
Moreover, there's plenty of research now

00:25:51.852 --> 00:25:54.652
showing that even experienced experts

00:25:54.652 --> 00:25:59.512
find it very difficult to identify a standard at the unit level

00:25:59.512 --> 00:26:00.932
compared to the previous year.

00:26:01.912 --> 00:26:03.692
In fact, nowadays with online awarding and so on,

00:26:03.732 --> 00:26:05.732
they don't even mark whole questions.

00:26:06.532 --> 00:26:09.512
So it's increasingly difficult for this expert judgment,

00:26:09.512 --> 00:26:21.325
which the whole system seems to be based on to maintain the standards I think AQA view certainly is that therefore

00:26:21.905 --> 00:26:25.925
especially with much more individual candidate level

00:26:25.925 --> 00:26:29.945
prior attainment data and so forth available,

00:26:30.405 --> 00:26:32.725
is that the award should be more statistically driven,

00:26:32.725 --> 00:26:35.425
not necessarily norm reference like you described,

00:26:35.585 --> 00:26:37.105
but maybe cohort reference.

00:26:37.305 --> 00:26:39.905
So you take into account changes in the ability of the cohort.

00:26:39.905 --> 00:26:42.725
it would stop great inflation

00:26:42.725 --> 00:26:45.045
and actually provide a more transparent

00:26:45.045 --> 00:26:46.225
way of

00:26:46.225 --> 00:26:48.785
setting standards

00:26:48.785 --> 00:26:50.665
rather than having this huge

00:26:50.665 --> 00:26:52.785
industry of judgement which people think

00:26:52.785 --> 00:26:54.645
is working and actually when you analyse it

00:26:54.645 --> 00:26:56.865
it's maybe a little bit

00:26:56.865 --> 00:26:57.225
flaky

00:26:57.225 --> 00:27:00.785
Paul Newton

00:27:00.785 --> 00:27:01.885
from Cambridge Assessment

00:27:01.885 --> 00:27:04.845
the cohort referencing is very attractive but the issue isn't

00:27:04.845 --> 00:27:06.745
really standards over time

00:27:06.745 --> 00:27:08.185
it's standards between boards

00:27:08.185 --> 00:27:10.545
and if you do normal distancing between boards

00:27:10.545 --> 00:27:14.065
and one board has got a much better intake,

00:27:14.265 --> 00:27:25.417
then it obviously fair and you really can go down that route That the main challenge I think It worth also saying that there never ever been a time in the history of UK examining

00:27:25.417 --> 00:27:29.217
when norm referencing has been done in the way that most people think it's been done.

00:27:29.917 --> 00:27:36.717
And it's very easy to establish that by looking back at the pass rates back in 1952 when A-level

00:27:36.717 --> 00:27:40.117
was introduced. But you can go back further, you can go back to the school certificate and

00:27:40.117 --> 00:27:44.317
the higher school certificate and look at the pass rates there. We've often done something

00:27:44.317 --> 00:27:45.677
that looks like norm referencing,

00:27:45.977 --> 00:27:49.037
keeping the fixed percentage of the cohort

00:27:49.037 --> 00:27:50.517
awarded the same grade,

00:27:50.617 --> 00:27:52.837
but it's actually done for a slightly different reason.

00:27:53.737 --> 00:27:55.977
You're just assuming that the cohort's similar,

00:27:56.197 --> 00:27:57.757
so you award similar pass rates.

00:27:57.857 --> 00:27:59.917
It's not actually keeping the pass rate stable

00:27:59.917 --> 00:28:00.677
for the sake of it,

00:28:01.037 --> 00:28:02.657
and that's the important conceptual distinction

00:28:02.657 --> 00:28:03.677
you need to make there.

00:28:04.817 --> 00:28:05.957
But I have sympathies.

00:28:05.957 --> 00:28:08.257
It would all be easier if we could cohort reference,

00:28:08.457 --> 00:28:08.937
norm reference.

00:28:09.597 --> 00:28:11.917
It seems to me the debate is already splitting

00:28:11.917 --> 00:28:15.657
into people who are interested in learning and education

00:28:15.657 --> 00:28:27.330
and people who are interested in if you like the arcana of examining And I not sure if we going to be able to bring those two together And indeed perhaps part of the problem is that those two are not as together as they should be

00:28:28.970 --> 00:28:32.170
Roger, actually I think it's about time since we're about halfway in.

00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:38.890
We might just take a quick round up from the panel on any thoughts that they've had so far.

00:28:39.010 --> 00:28:40.530
Because we've covered three or four topics now.

00:28:40.630 --> 00:28:41.430
Roger, would you like to?

00:28:41.970 --> 00:28:45.810
I think one of the problems in our debate is that there are a lot of people in this room

00:28:45.810 --> 00:28:48.690
who are much more interested in improving learning

00:28:48.690 --> 00:28:50.130
and improving achievement

00:28:50.130 --> 00:28:51.970
and less interested in assessment

00:28:51.970 --> 00:28:54.390
unless it can help for that to happen.

00:28:55.250 --> 00:28:57.770
And I think the kind of route we go down with this last point,

00:28:57.850 --> 00:28:58.850
if you go to norm referencing

00:28:58.850 --> 00:29:02.110
and you get around Paul's problem by only having one exam board,

00:29:02.450 --> 00:29:03.690
I mean, you can publish the results

00:29:03.690 --> 00:29:05.190
before the students take the exam.

00:29:05.310 --> 00:29:06.150
You know what they're going to be.

00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:07.150
It's fixed in advance.

00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.470
So it'll tell you nothing about standards over time.

00:29:09.590 --> 00:29:12.130
Fine, that would be one good, quite outcome

00:29:12.130 --> 00:29:13.670
because then you'd have to go looking elsewhere.

00:29:13.670 --> 00:29:17.670
I'm interested in Mike Baker's point about international comparisons.

00:29:17.670 --> 00:29:25.630
Presumably we're interested in looking internationally to find out if people in other countries have found better ways of teaching than we have.

00:29:25.861 --> 00:29:30.541
Well, I don't think spending lots of time staring at exam results is the thing to be doing.

00:29:30.681 --> 00:29:36.641
It's much more interesting to look at videos of how people are teaching in countries where we know the students are achieving quite highly.

00:29:36.761 --> 00:29:42.721
So I think we have got a polarised debate, and I think most of us are more interested in learning and good education.

00:29:43.061 --> 00:29:46.041
And I think the answer is that exams are never going to help us with that.

00:29:46.121 --> 00:29:50.361
They're not going to answer the questions we want to ask about how do we make learning more effective.

00:29:50.441 --> 00:29:53.181
We've got to look at other kinds of data and other kinds of evidence.

00:29:54.581 --> 00:29:54.941
Gordon?

00:29:54.941 --> 00:30:08.641
I pick up on Mike Baker's politics side of it, that if a government's funding 80%, 85% of what goes on in schools, they have some rights to ask what's going on here.

00:30:09.181 --> 00:30:16.481
The issue becomes to what extent you control it, whether you hold the ring or whether you get in there and start to manipulate things that are going on.

00:30:16.541 --> 00:30:20.341
And I think that's the current political dilemma at the moment.

00:30:20.341 --> 00:30:34.573
I think it links to the whole issue of international standards as well because what happened is these are low tests for the kids who take them but they become very high stakes for government You got governments around the world changing curriculum

00:30:34.573 --> 00:30:42.273
Denmark, Norway who come badly in Pisa. We had a bad Pisa and so you start changing things radically.

00:30:43.173 --> 00:30:48.273
So international and then we go off and we do policy borrowing. We see what's happened

00:30:48.273 --> 00:30:53.733
in a country that's done well. I found Finland particularly interesting having one Pisa

00:30:53.733 --> 00:30:57.833
and our inspectors and everybody else went off in the usual coach load

00:30:57.833 --> 00:30:59.633
to find out what happened there.

00:30:59.733 --> 00:31:01.833
And they found that the reason might have been

00:31:01.833 --> 00:31:04.893
that they had local comprehensive schools with highly paid teachers,

00:31:05.013 --> 00:31:08.013
much respected by the community, and they were keeping libraries open.

00:31:09.413 --> 00:31:13.173
So everybody just shut up and came home, really,

00:31:13.233 --> 00:31:15.693
because we've just got rid of all that.

00:31:16.953 --> 00:31:21.813
So the notion, I think, it's the way these link together

00:31:21.813 --> 00:31:38.466
that government have an issue you know feel that for them where they are in these tables is important And the political issue is where do I interfere or where do I try and control and where do I back off and leave it and

00:31:38.466 --> 00:31:42.786
do we trust the professionals that do we not and I think that I mean this is in

00:31:42.786 --> 00:31:47.766
the present election this is quite a debate at the moment it seems to me or

00:31:47.766 --> 00:31:52.446
a subtext of what's going on here do we trust the teachers and the schools and

00:31:52.446 --> 00:31:54.206
the exam boards are doing on.

00:31:55.546 --> 00:31:55.946
Anastasia?

00:31:56.226 --> 00:32:00.366
I think international comparisons really are the only thing that we have today that is

00:32:00.366 --> 00:32:00.686
useful.

00:32:00.806 --> 00:32:02.006
I think there are lots of caveats.

00:32:02.166 --> 00:32:06.486
Sometimes we might do very badly for a completely different reason, or quite often we might

00:32:06.486 --> 00:32:08.566
do very well for a completely different reason.

00:32:09.226 --> 00:32:14.166
But the point about international comparisons is they're not testing what we have learnt

00:32:14.166 --> 00:32:15.746
to learn in order to be tested in.

00:32:16.026 --> 00:32:20.306
And that's the problem with exams at the moment, is that it's too much about how good you are

00:32:20.306 --> 00:32:22.446
at preparing kids for those exams.

00:32:23.266 --> 00:32:25.406
So the question is, how do you overcome that?

00:32:26.066 --> 00:32:28.866
And probably the best way to try and overcome that

00:32:28.866 --> 00:32:42.199
is to make sure that it a focus on the curriculum not the exams And that why I do think to an extent this focus on exams is something of a red herring It is very important to know how we doing for kids themselves It important for the next thing they going on to

00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:43.879
And it's crucially important for teachers.

00:32:44.459 --> 00:32:46.439
But it is this problem about severing

00:32:46.439 --> 00:32:48.239
or trying to sever national accountability

00:32:48.239 --> 00:32:50.399
with individual student performance.

00:32:50.699 --> 00:32:53.299
And that's the thing I think we're not quite getting to the heart of.

00:32:53.919 --> 00:32:56.779
But generally, I think that ensuring impartiality,

00:32:56.839 --> 00:32:59.379
I think what Mike was saying about politics being involved,

00:32:59.379 --> 00:33:09.519
We do need to have something which is like Ofsted but better, and Ofqual should be the answer, which is about regulating the details of exams and of curricula as well.

00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:15.379
I think the big problem at the moment is that we're far too interested in the headline results.

00:33:15.699 --> 00:33:26.679
We're not interested in details, and I think that's why the academy issue is important, because a lot of academies that were doing fantastically and were transparent about what they were doing were very proud to show us about that.

00:33:26.679 --> 00:33:31.679
but it's the lack of transparency because we're only interested in the currency, the grades,

00:33:31.679 --> 00:33:37.879
which is where you get into problems. Tim, I've left you to last partly because you

00:33:37.989 --> 00:33:46.869
You've spoken quite a lot about the alignment of education and assessment, but you may not want to speak about that.

00:33:48.669 --> 00:33:55.669
No, no, I'll pick that up first. I want to really address two points and integrate a number of the points in so doing.

00:33:56.349 --> 00:34:05.249
The second point, I want to move on very much this issue that Tandy raised in terms of the accountability of the system to the public and the social justice inherent in assessment.

00:34:05.249 --> 00:34:14.409
But no, absolutely this issue of the primacy of the educational experience and the role of measurement within that.

00:34:14.729 --> 00:34:22.929
We're extremely concerned as researchers, developers in an awarding body when it is evidently the case,

00:34:23.189 --> 00:34:28.709
when one looks at the research and goes into schools, that the performativity agenda is dominating

00:34:28.709 --> 00:34:32.209
and that the assessment,

00:34:32.889 --> 00:34:34.049
the role of qualifications

00:34:34.049 --> 00:34:35.049
and the role of assessment

00:34:35.049 --> 00:34:47.142
has been transformed from fair and accurate assessment of what people can do and have done to an agenda for narrow drilling towards assessments That transformation is not a good thing

00:34:47.802 --> 00:34:53.282
And within that, there are smaller aspects of the implications of those changes

00:34:53.282 --> 00:34:57.142
on which one could focus, like the borderline CD issue,

00:34:58.142 --> 00:34:59.942
where getting a C is so crucial

00:34:59.942 --> 00:35:03.382
that there's been an inappropriate degree of targeting

00:35:03.382 --> 00:35:06.082
on the borderline DC candidates

00:35:06.082 --> 00:35:09.342
to the neglect of both the least able and the most able.

00:35:09.902 --> 00:35:11.382
And those are quite, you know,

00:35:11.382 --> 00:35:13.622
they're sort of narrow technical preoccupations

00:35:13.622 --> 00:35:15.662
but actually have profound educational implications

00:35:15.662 --> 00:35:17.022
in the schools.

00:35:17.942 --> 00:35:20.642
So the role of assessment undoubtedly should shift

00:35:20.642 --> 00:35:24.142
to being that where we provide fair and accurate assessment

00:35:24.142 --> 00:35:25.462
of rich learning.

00:35:26.182 --> 00:35:29.762
To pick up this crucial point about public understanding

00:35:29.762 --> 00:35:32.882
and accountability in respect of judgment,

00:35:33.382 --> 00:35:48.855
And coming on to Paul and Jeff points about are we in a world of criterion referencing or norm referencing it surely cannot be the case that we operate in secrecy without any degree of moral accountability

00:35:50.035 --> 00:35:52.335
We are awash with data and awarding bodies,

00:35:52.595 --> 00:35:56.735
and we use that data in order to inform the judgment process.

00:35:58.175 --> 00:36:01.375
A number of people in the assessment community believe fervently

00:36:01.375 --> 00:36:05.335
that what we are about are bringing the right people together

00:36:05.335 --> 00:36:08.275
to judge what a young person has done.

00:36:09.135 --> 00:36:14.815
And that's what should be the basis of the fair and accurate assessment of an individual or a group of individuals.

00:36:15.635 --> 00:36:17.475
The right judgment by the right people.

00:36:17.475 --> 00:36:20.515
Of course, there are approximations in that.

00:36:20.595 --> 00:36:24.035
That judgment will be volatile over time.

00:36:25.055 --> 00:36:31.515
But the key thing is that the right group of people are involved in making those judgments, informed by evidence.

00:36:32.975 --> 00:36:38.715
Now, where it becomes problematic is how much evidence and where should that evidence be derived from.

00:36:38.715 --> 00:36:41.955
Well, nationally, the evidence should be scripts.

00:36:41.955 --> 00:36:56.247
It should be evidence created by the young people themselves But what we experiencing at the moment is quite a subtle and unrecognized shift towards statistics where people attainment is being judged not by what they can do but what has

00:36:56.247 --> 00:36:58.927
been done before.

00:36:58.927 --> 00:37:02.967
We're neither in a world of norm referencing nor in a world of criterion referencing, and

00:37:02.967 --> 00:37:08.087
there are big social justice issues involved in that.

00:37:08.087 --> 00:37:20.687
The drive towards statistics cannot account for an unexpected and dramatic acceleration and achievement in a given group by virtue of a school or a group of schools doing particularly well.

00:37:22.047 --> 00:37:25.067
Now, that's a debate which we feel should be worked out in public.

00:37:25.427 --> 00:37:27.147
In terms of data, we have the data.

00:37:27.267 --> 00:37:31.887
We need to decide publicly what data we want to get out there through the regulator

00:37:31.887 --> 00:37:38.387
so that awarding bodies can be held account by the public and by key institutions.

00:37:38.847 --> 00:37:42.247
But judgment is at the heart of it, and I agree entirely with Roger.

00:37:43.047 --> 00:37:47.307
The main thing about awarding is we need to make sure that the right people are there at the center

00:37:47.307 --> 00:37:50.127
from the subject community making those judgments.

00:37:50.378 --> 00:37:53.298
Just a footnote, Chair, sorry, just bear with me just a second.

00:37:54.218 --> 00:37:58.038
All of the evidence that we look at, I mean, and there is evidence in terms of, you know,

00:37:58.118 --> 00:38:03.878
have standards slipped in particular subjects, in terms of how well young people are being prepared for higher education

00:38:03.878 --> 00:38:06.378
or how well they're being prepared for employment.

00:38:06.778 --> 00:38:07.978
There is evidence out there.

00:38:08.698 --> 00:38:12.118
What's interesting is that evidence tends to be in specific subjects,

00:38:12.598 --> 00:38:17.038
and they point to the need to make specific changes, very specific changes,

00:38:17.038 --> 00:38:21.718
in respect to the curriculum and assessment in specific subjects.

00:38:22.298 --> 00:38:26.038
It doesn't point to constant wholesale system change

00:38:26.038 --> 00:38:28.758
or moving the proportion of assessment,

00:38:28.878 --> 00:38:30.358
the amount of time spent on assessment,

00:38:31.078 --> 00:38:33.418
in all subjects from one quantum to another.

00:38:34.198 --> 00:38:37.838
What it points to is careful and sophisticated management

00:38:37.838 --> 00:38:41.678
at a subject level of the battery of qualifications that we have

00:38:41.678 --> 00:38:43.618
and drawing evidence from research,

00:38:44.018 --> 00:38:46.338
from subject communities, professional communities,

00:38:46.338 --> 00:39:01.391
and from the economy to manage those changes Gordon you wanted a very quick riposte It seems to me that the main review I think we can tweak exams we can make them fairer and everything else And I think we have a system that is very conscientious about trying

00:39:01.391 --> 00:39:07.131
to do this. It seems to me from comments to the other comments, it's actually the accountability

00:39:07.131 --> 00:39:12.591
agenda that should be the prime target of reform. We should be discussing can we make

00:39:12.591 --> 00:39:17.551
schools accountable in other ways than the raw grades and everything. That's what's driving

00:39:17.551 --> 00:39:20.671
It's not the results, it's the uses the results are put to.

00:39:21.151 --> 00:39:24.751
And that's where, if you like, the political debate ought to go

00:39:24.751 --> 00:39:29.191
about can we back off the use, the accountability.

00:39:29.471 --> 00:39:32.231
Can we find a better way of doing this?

00:39:32.651 --> 00:39:35.491
So you're beginning to answer your question on where the state comes in.

00:39:35.971 --> 00:39:37.231
Dr. Ron McClone.

00:39:38.411 --> 00:39:39.451
Ron McClone.

00:39:39.811 --> 00:39:41.071
Stand up, please, Ron.

00:39:41.591 --> 00:39:42.351
For the cameras.

00:39:43.491 --> 00:39:46.951
Cambridge Assessment retired, otherwise of no fixed address.

00:39:47.551 --> 00:40:03.563
A lot has been said of the real underlying issues that are around our debate And particularly I think what is coming out is the underlying purpose of what it all about

00:40:04.283 --> 00:40:06.683
I've seen to me over many, many years,

00:40:07.003 --> 00:40:10.783
I've seen governments, awarding bodies, employers,

00:40:10.983 --> 00:40:12.903
we don't mention employers much this morning,

00:40:13.423 --> 00:40:17.143
all having views about what these examinations are about.

00:40:17.603 --> 00:40:20.663
How about thinking about what the students need?

00:40:20.663 --> 00:40:28.163
It seems to me our problem is the multifarious way we want the same assessment to actually deliver.

00:40:28.563 --> 00:40:34.283
We've mentioned that several times over this morning, but don't actually get round trying to solve it.

00:40:34.983 --> 00:40:38.983
We are faced with selecting for universities.

00:40:39.603 --> 00:40:48.463
We're faced with employers who have requirements which are really sort of brought together sometimes by groups of employers.

00:40:48.463 --> 00:40:53.783
But actually employers saying, for my purpose, this isn't right.

00:40:54.803 --> 00:41:05.516
And you also have of course schools and teachers who have their own needs and their own wants with the children they got and know what best for their children as schools do

00:41:06.776 --> 00:41:08.116
And then we have government.

00:41:09.416 --> 00:41:15.836
On top of that, we have what are called the measurement for accountability purposes.

00:41:16.936 --> 00:41:18.536
We are awash with data.

00:41:19.456 --> 00:41:23.096
We don't need any more data, I would suggest.

00:41:24.076 --> 00:41:26.816
But we do need to know how to interpret data,

00:41:27.196 --> 00:41:28.916
and that is the biggest problem we have

00:41:28.916 --> 00:41:31.496
because individuals have different ways of interpreting it.

00:41:32.276 --> 00:41:37.036
What I would say about the whole way in which we're moving

00:41:37.036 --> 00:41:41.696
is that there is, because the government feels it wants to use

00:41:41.696 --> 00:41:44.296
what we've got in terms of the results,

00:41:44.816 --> 00:41:49.496
we are enforced to use the same instruments

00:41:49.496 --> 00:41:51.796
to measure too many different things.

00:41:51.796 --> 00:42:02.356
We should concentrate on separating out what is needed for accountability from what is needed for the individual students so that the student is best prepared.

00:42:02.487 --> 00:42:03.887
for what they want to do in the future.

00:42:04.767 --> 00:42:08.807
And at the same time, get away from that measurement

00:42:08.807 --> 00:42:10.567
which implies there are equivalences.

00:42:11.627 --> 00:42:13.387
Part of the problem we have also

00:42:13.387 --> 00:42:16.147
is that because we think we need to measure,

00:42:17.067 --> 00:42:18.347
we think things are equivalent.

00:42:19.747 --> 00:42:20.787
You know the sort of...

00:42:20.787 --> 00:42:23.827
We've mentioned equivalence between subjects

00:42:23.827 --> 00:42:25.387
that are somewhat false.

00:42:26.227 --> 00:42:28.967
We talk about equivalence between qualifications

00:42:28.967 --> 00:42:34.287
so that you can actually get schools, for example, or academies

00:42:34.287 --> 00:42:38.267
using IT qualifications that count as four GCSEs

00:42:38.267 --> 00:42:41.667
and regarding them as the same as four different subjects,

00:42:41.907 --> 00:42:43.327
like history or geography.

00:42:44.127 --> 00:42:47.727
And we have to ask ourselves, why do we do that?

00:42:48.947 --> 00:42:53.887
Now, is it because it's most important that the state needs to know?

00:42:53.887 --> 00:42:57.647
or should we really be valuing

00:42:57.647 --> 00:42:59.127
that it's most important

00:42:59.127 --> 00:43:10.919
that you develop individuals for the best of their abilities so that they are best satisfied for what they can do I happen to think it the latter Okay

00:43:13.099 --> 00:43:14.759
Yes, down in the centre.

00:43:16.099 --> 00:43:18.379
And then right at the very back.

00:43:19.739 --> 00:43:21.540
Helen Patrick, retired.

00:43:22.479 --> 00:43:26.519
I owe this comment to John Bell, who is nothing if not a statistician.

00:43:26.519 --> 00:43:33.419
I want to go back to the point about norm referencing and other ways that might get rid of the complexity of grading and judgment.

00:43:34.540 --> 00:43:43.820
The risk of going down the statistical route is that you divorce the result that someone gets from the content of what they've learned

00:43:43.820 --> 00:43:48.180
and the performance they've exhibited in terms of whatever kind of assessment they've done.

00:43:48.279 --> 00:43:52.999
So I think that going down the solely statistical route is not a good idea.

00:43:56.519 --> 00:44:00.919
We haven't said very much about employers, but Ron is anticipating me.

00:44:01.099 --> 00:44:15.892
We have somebody from the Manufacturers Association at the very back and also I going to call David Belmont is he still here Right and David Belmont to talk about is this just GCSEs and A

00:44:16.112 --> 00:44:18.852
Does it impact on vocationals?

00:44:20.452 --> 00:44:23.152
Paul O'Donnell from the Manufacturing Technologies Association.

00:44:23.792 --> 00:44:31.432
I was heartened by Ron McClone's comment about the need to involve employers more.

00:44:31.432 --> 00:44:38.732
I think that somebody else earlier said that employers have no confidence in the examination system.

00:44:39.232 --> 00:44:42.252
I think that's probably overstating the case.

00:44:42.492 --> 00:44:46.352
I think that probably the issue is actually not whether they have any confidence in it,

00:44:46.392 --> 00:44:47.992
but what their engagement level is in it.

00:44:48.492 --> 00:44:52.612
And I think there are two underlying problems with employer engagement.

00:44:53.212 --> 00:44:57.152
The first is that events like this, which are very welcome,

00:44:57.152 --> 00:44:59.872
and I thank Cambridge Testament for putting this sort of thing on,

00:44:59.872 --> 00:45:17.305
but do not necessarily speak to a wide range of audiences of the people who are effectively the customers of the system And that means employers that means parents and that probably means students as well But the other underlying issue I think

00:45:17.365 --> 00:45:21.345
is around the involvement of employers in the development of qualifications.

00:45:22.065 --> 00:45:24.925
And I wondered whether the panel or other people in the audience

00:45:24.925 --> 00:45:26.505
had anything to say about the mechanisms

00:45:26.505 --> 00:45:29.905
that are available for employers to be involved in development,

00:45:30.525 --> 00:45:33.865
whether what we've got now is working, which it doesn't seem to be,

00:45:33.865 --> 00:45:37.565
and perhaps how we might want to improve that in the future.

00:45:39.565 --> 00:45:41.085
David Belmont next.

00:45:41.805 --> 00:45:42.445
Delmont, sorry.

00:45:44.105 --> 00:45:45.845
And then the gentleman in front of him.

00:45:48.425 --> 00:45:50.425
It's David Delmont, actually with D.

00:45:51.285 --> 00:45:52.245
Yes, beg pardon.

00:45:53.605 --> 00:45:56.805
I'm the work-based learning manager in a further education college

00:45:56.805 --> 00:46:01.825
in a fairly deprived borough, Barking and Dagenham.

00:46:01.825 --> 00:46:05.725
and I've been there for six years

00:46:05.725 --> 00:46:09.465
and it's my view that the standards of the young people

00:46:09.465 --> 00:46:12.105
applying to us for apprenticeships has dropped

00:46:12.105 --> 00:46:13.625
and

00:46:14.736 --> 00:46:17.696
What the young people tell us is that when they're in school,

00:46:18.456 --> 00:46:22.316
if they are going to be taking a vocational route

00:46:22.316 --> 00:46:23.756
rather than the academic route,

00:46:23.936 --> 00:46:27.736
like going from GCSEs onto A-levels and onto university,

00:46:28.416 --> 00:46:30.296
they're saying that they feel that they are,

00:46:31.556 --> 00:46:35.356
I won't say sidelined, but they're actually on a different track

00:46:35.356 --> 00:46:37.716
and they're being ignored

00:46:37.716 --> 00:46:40.056
and they're not getting the same standard of education

00:46:40.056 --> 00:46:44.236
as the people that are taking the A-levels.

00:46:44.736 --> 00:46:51.696
And I think I might have a view that every year we look in August

00:46:51.696 --> 00:46:56.416
and we see the young people opening up their GCSE results and their A-level results,

00:46:57.096 --> 00:46:59.696
and that is what seems to be the measure.

00:47:00.216 --> 00:47:02.956
But we've got people who are taking a vocational route,

00:47:03.536 --> 00:47:07.856
and quite honestly, they are coming to us with very rarely grades A to C,

00:47:09.356 --> 00:47:23.448
and often no GCSE grades at all and often very low grades and when we actually take them through their qualification the Fervor Education College really ends up as a surrogate for what they haven learned in

00:47:23.448 --> 00:47:30.708
the previous 11 years. An apprenticeship is not an easy option and I think sometimes there's

00:47:30.708 --> 00:47:35.748
too much emphasis on what is seen as the practical side but an apprenticeship contains three main

00:47:35.748 --> 00:47:40.888
parts. It's a technical certificate, an NVQ and also key skills in which they're going to be

00:47:40.888 --> 00:47:42.548
developing into functional skills.

00:47:43.448 --> 00:47:47.728
And we find it extremely difficult to achieve apprenticeship frameworks

00:47:47.728 --> 00:47:52.868
on the key skills side because the young people have not got those skills

00:47:52.868 --> 00:47:54.128
coming to us.

00:47:54.668 --> 00:47:56.388
And although we give them additional learning support,

00:47:56.528 --> 00:47:57.928
it's extremely difficult to get them through.

00:47:58.288 --> 00:48:01.308
And the government says, I think it wants 500,000 apprentices.

00:48:01.728 --> 00:48:05.308
I'm hoping it wants 500,000 apprentices to pass their frameworks.

00:48:05.888 --> 00:48:08.548
It's not just going to be a statistic that we've got enough people

00:48:08.548 --> 00:48:09.728
coming in on apprenticeships.

00:48:09.728 --> 00:48:11.768
it is also important that they pass

00:48:11.768 --> 00:48:13.928
further education colleges are measured

00:48:13.928 --> 00:48:35.261
by minimum levels of performance if they don get learners through their qualification then they say next year you haven achieved your minimum level performance therefore we take your funding away So what we really looking for is that when young people apply for apprenticeships they are equipped with the functional skills to achieve their apprenticeships

00:48:35.541 --> 00:48:44.301
Because it seems to me that we may be turning out young people from schools who are functionally, I'm not saying they're illiterate, but it may be bouldering on that.

00:48:44.561 --> 00:48:45.221
Thank you.

00:48:45.221 --> 00:48:47.781
Thank you. And the gentleman in front of him.

00:48:49.201 --> 00:48:50.581
Hello, David Howell again.

00:48:50.661 --> 00:48:56.461
But can I wear a slightly different hat as a governor of a new institution starting in September called School of Communication Arts?

00:48:56.901 --> 00:49:00.061
I'll come on to why that's relevant in a minute in terms of its employ links.

00:49:00.381 --> 00:49:04.041
But I also wanted to comment on two issues that have come up in the last five minutes.

00:49:04.461 --> 00:49:09.761
And one is this whole question about are we asking the right kind of questions and the right values in this debate?

00:49:09.761 --> 00:49:12.361
and this thing about academies or other schools

00:49:12.361 --> 00:49:14.841
that might be doing BTECs

00:49:14.841 --> 00:49:17.001
in order to raise their qualifications.

00:49:17.401 --> 00:49:31.293
I not suggesting this is necessarily the case but as a senior manager possibly you might be playing a very clever game by doing that of saying if you actually believe that all this debate about where the standards are forward and the examinations is actually not actually about the right kind of questions

00:49:31.653 --> 00:49:34.833
then, OK, let's do these BTA examinations, drive up the results,

00:49:34.973 --> 00:49:38.333
because we've established an academy where there may have been a failing school,

00:49:38.613 --> 00:49:41.013
you know, so said a failing school there before,

00:49:41.073 --> 00:49:44.073
to get rid of that debate so that the politicians will go away from this

00:49:44.073 --> 00:49:47.153
so we can actually concentrate on what the more important questions are,

00:49:47.153 --> 00:49:48.753
which is about what we should be delivering

00:49:48.753 --> 00:49:51.133
and what we should actually be teaching in there.

00:49:51.413 --> 00:49:52.553
I mean, if you were a senior manager,

00:49:52.633 --> 00:49:53.693
you might actually take that view.

00:49:53.793 --> 00:49:56.573
What's the quickest way to get the political pressure off us

00:49:56.573 --> 00:49:59.353
and actually stop the kind of criticism?

00:49:59.533 --> 00:50:00.993
And that could be one view there.

00:50:01.733 --> 00:50:03.233
Can I pass a comment about another area

00:50:03.233 --> 00:50:05.373
that we've raised just recently,

00:50:05.473 --> 00:50:07.193
which is about employer engagement?

00:50:07.773 --> 00:50:09.633
And it comes back to the School of Communication Arts,

00:50:09.733 --> 00:50:13.033
which is around the arts and communication industries.

00:50:13.033 --> 00:50:15.653
It's a new specialised institution

00:50:15.653 --> 00:50:18.693
which were delivering a very vocational qualification.

00:50:20.913 --> 00:50:23.713
It's obviously quite small and it'll be starting in September.

00:50:23.713 --> 00:50:25.773
But what they've done there in establishing the curriculum

00:50:25.773 --> 00:50:26.873
is they've put it out

00:50:26.984 --> 00:50:28.724
and I'm sure there'll be professionals in the audience

00:50:28.724 --> 00:50:30.404
who will be horrified and listening about this,

00:50:30.404 --> 00:50:33.284
on Wikipedia, in actually to do it.

00:50:33.364 --> 00:50:36.404
They actually passed it back to the industry experts

00:50:36.404 --> 00:50:39.644
and said, okay, you always say, or you quite often say,

00:50:39.864 --> 00:50:42.344
we're not preparing young people for the right kind of things,

00:50:42.684 --> 00:50:46.124
so let's pass the buck back to you and say,

00:50:46.424 --> 00:50:48.304
would you like to contribute directly into the curriculum?

00:50:48.724 --> 00:50:50.204
And they invited people from the industry,

00:50:50.344 --> 00:50:52.144
but it also was open to other people as well,

00:50:52.384 --> 00:50:55.004
to actually design the curriculum online

00:50:55.004 --> 00:50:57.304
and to contribute to it, to invent new modules,

00:50:57.464 --> 00:51:00.004
to actually change the content, to revise what people have put there.

00:51:00.324 --> 00:51:03.404
Obviously, it was moderated in terms of actually getting it up to some consistency,

00:51:03.824 --> 00:51:06.504
but it was actually about putting that back out to the industry

00:51:06.504 --> 00:51:11.004
and saying, okay, the majority of the input into that curriculum

00:51:11.544 --> 00:51:14.404
is going to come from the industry, not from the educational professionals,

00:51:14.584 --> 00:51:16.244
and let's see actually where that comes from.

00:51:16.804 --> 00:51:22.184
Now, as a method of doing that right across the wider state education system,

00:51:22.284 --> 00:51:24.784
that is obviously an impossible thing to do,

00:51:24.784 --> 00:51:37.357
and to manage But it does raise a rather interesting kind of way of doing that in a specialized area that is probably worthy of looking at in some detail a couple of years down the line to see actually what actually that achieves and whether the people who actually come

00:51:37.357 --> 00:51:42.617
out from that school are seen by the industry as being more relevant, more trained in terms

00:51:42.617 --> 00:51:43.777
of the kind of skills that they've got.

00:51:45.437 --> 00:51:48.537
Thank you for that. Yes, in the middle here.

00:51:48.537 --> 00:51:58.177
my name is martin rowland i'm freelance i've worked in further education higher education

00:51:58.177 --> 00:52:03.877
i do some work with sector skills councils um and i work with an examining board as well so

00:52:03.877 --> 00:52:09.237
quite a range of experience i'd just like to reiterate what the previous speaker was saying

00:52:09.237 --> 00:52:12.717
i mean the work i do with the sector skills council it strikes me that there is a dichotomy

00:52:12.717 --> 00:52:16.117
between the employer side and the education side.

00:52:16.717 --> 00:52:20.357
And I think it reflects back to what Roger Murphy was saying earlier on and several others.

00:52:20.457 --> 00:52:25.297
Unless we decided what fitness for purpose is, there's no real point in talking about

00:52:25.297 --> 00:52:38.590
standards because industry employers want one thing and educationalists want another And where is the standard in that It leads into the role of government which I think is absolutely key because even if it doesn regulate

00:52:38.590 --> 00:52:44.250
I think it's probably the only medium that can get the interested stakeholders together to decide what the purpose is.

00:52:45.490 --> 00:52:51.950
A second issue which sort of worries me a little bit from my work with exam boards and working with schools and colleges

00:52:51.950 --> 00:52:56.490
in a different capacity, is that ultimately I don't think a lot of our learners

00:52:56.490 --> 00:52:58.870
actually give a monkey's about standards.

00:52:59.730 --> 00:53:00.570
And I'll tell you why.

00:53:01.290 --> 00:53:04.910
A-level students are using the data, which is out there,

00:53:05.290 --> 00:53:07.850
to inform the decision about what A-levels to take.

00:53:08.650 --> 00:53:11.850
And what I'd like, what interests me,

00:53:12.230 --> 00:53:14.450
and where it will take me in terms of a career

00:53:14.450 --> 00:53:18.050
are getting more and more irrelevant in the choices that young people are making.

00:53:18.550 --> 00:53:20.630
They're simply looking at the raw statistics,

00:53:20.630 --> 00:53:25.590
saying you get more grade A's in this subject than you do in that.

00:53:25.590 --> 00:53:41.562
I stand a better chance of getting four grade A if I do this this this and this than anything else And I think that probably one of the most worrying things about this standards debate People are going nowhere because they don know their purpose The exam system is going nowhere

00:53:41.562 --> 00:53:43.002
because it doesn't know its purpose

00:53:43.002 --> 00:53:45.042
and until we've got that sorted out,

00:53:45.142 --> 00:53:46.322
there are no standards at all.

00:53:48.322 --> 00:53:48.942
Thank you.

00:53:49.022 --> 00:53:51.082
Now, I seem to remember reading

00:53:51.082 --> 00:53:53.802
some kind of research paper

00:53:53.802 --> 00:53:56.422
on exactly this topic.

00:53:56.422 --> 00:54:00.362
Sylvia Green, on the first part.

00:54:01.202 --> 00:54:09.042
Sylvia Green, Director of Research at Cambridge Assessments.

00:54:09.042 --> 00:54:16.742
And I leap up at this point because we have actually conducted some very detailed research into A-level choice,

00:54:16.862 --> 00:54:18.442
which some of you may have seen.

00:54:19.062 --> 00:54:24.942
And I'd like to portray a slightly more optimistic picture of our A-level students

00:54:24.942 --> 00:54:27.902
because it was a big study,

00:54:28.202 --> 00:54:31.402
included about 12,500 students, I think.

00:54:32.142 --> 00:54:34.902
It's available on the Cambridge Assessment website

00:54:34.902 --> 00:54:37.022
if anyone would like to look at it in detail.

00:54:37.882 --> 00:54:39.122
And what we found with our,

00:54:39.233 --> 00:54:46.453
the students interviewed was that they were actually making choices for very good reasons.

00:54:47.193 --> 00:54:53.493
They were making choices about subjects that they enjoyed, subjects they were interested in.

00:54:54.253 --> 00:55:00.953
Yes, and that very often is the subject in which they may have done well, but they were not looking

00:55:00.953 --> 00:55:07.513
at it in that particular way, I'm pleased to say, from this research. And they were looking quite

00:55:07.513 --> 00:55:14.253
clearly at the kind of futures they wanted for themselves and the kind of professions they might

00:55:14.253 --> 00:55:23.893
want to pursue in the future. But they were making good choices for, I felt and we felt,

00:55:24.333 --> 00:55:30.453
very good and useful reasons. So I would just like to point people towards that research if anyone

00:55:30.453 --> 00:55:36.633
is interested in A-level choice. And they were getting advice from lots of different sources,

00:55:36.633 --> 00:55:49.146
perhaps that advice could have been better timed and better placed but the students themselves were pretty savvy about what they were doing in terms of their own subjects and their own futures

00:55:49.906 --> 00:55:56.286
And we were very, very pleased with the findings from that research. It was an optimistic finding.

00:55:57.126 --> 00:55:57.546
Thank you.

00:55:57.866 --> 00:56:01.686
Thank you, which deals with the students but doesn't actually go to the heart of your question

00:56:01.686 --> 00:56:06.686
is whether the system knows what it wants to do. It is interesting, the 1911 report

00:56:06.686 --> 00:56:08.106
that I referred to earlier

00:56:08.106 --> 00:56:09.826
recommended a certificate

00:56:09.826 --> 00:56:13.666
at which the standard shall be set

00:56:13.666 --> 00:56:16.666
at the level of a good liberal arts education

00:56:16.666 --> 00:56:18.126
at age 16.

00:56:18.806 --> 00:56:20.686
Do we have too many targets,

00:56:20.846 --> 00:56:21.626
too many standards?

00:56:21.726 --> 00:56:23.306
That seems a very simple standard.

00:56:23.726 --> 00:56:25.306
Whether it's understandable in modern Britain

00:56:25.306 --> 00:56:26.006
is another matter,

00:56:26.406 --> 00:56:27.946
but it's a simple one-off standard,

00:56:28.106 --> 00:56:29.206
pass-fail distinction.

00:56:30.266 --> 00:56:31.686
We could go down that route.

00:56:32.986 --> 00:56:34.186
Who would like to pick that up?

00:56:35.106 --> 00:56:35.286
Sir?

00:56:35.826 --> 00:56:36.146
Sir?

00:56:36.686 --> 00:56:51.598
Julian Stanley University of Warwick I sorry it wasn exactly that point I wanted to come in but I was trying to come in on an earlier point for some time I just wanted to bring the thinking back to the question of public understanding

00:56:51.938 --> 00:56:53.478
which we talked about a lot,

00:56:53.698 --> 00:56:56.578
and what's wrong with public understanding?

00:56:58.418 --> 00:57:01.038
Because people again and again have been putting back this gap,

00:57:01.378 --> 00:57:04.098
and there does seem to be this persistent public understanding

00:57:04.098 --> 00:57:07.738
of qualifications as differentiating.

00:57:07.738 --> 00:57:09.798
and that does seem to be one of the problems

00:57:09.798 --> 00:57:11.778
why public understanding persistently

00:57:11.778 --> 00:57:13.818
sees as something normative going on there

00:57:13.818 --> 00:57:15.638
and persistently is dissatisfied

00:57:15.638 --> 00:57:17.918
if that expectation

00:57:17.918 --> 00:57:19.918
is not met, if too many people do well

00:57:19.918 --> 00:57:20.838
basically

00:57:20.838 --> 00:57:23.638
and that may be something

00:57:23.638 --> 00:57:24.698
we can educate on

00:57:24.698 --> 00:57:27.778
but that may be a sort of basic public

00:57:27.778 --> 00:57:29.158
understanding which is out there

00:57:29.158 --> 00:57:31.858
which has got to become determined with

00:57:31.858 --> 00:57:33.838
I mean additionally, public understanding does seem

00:57:33.838 --> 00:57:34.918
to be not entirely uniform

00:57:34.918 --> 00:57:37.558
there is a notion out there

00:57:37.558 --> 00:57:39.558
that it should be fair.

00:57:39.558 --> 00:57:41.638
And that's, again, something which we find technically

00:57:41.638 --> 00:57:55.571
quite difficult to deliver And again there a sort of public understanding which is that you know qualification should tell us what people are gonna be able to do in the future You know there a sort of public understanding which is that qualifications should tell us what people are going to be able to do in the future there a sort of validity and I suppose it kind of getting the public to think about

00:57:55.571 --> 00:57:57.311
those different claims and trying to reconcile

00:57:57.311 --> 00:57:59.331
these different expectations that they've got of

00:57:59.331 --> 00:58:00.871
qualifications and

00:58:00.871 --> 00:58:03.811
getting different bits of the public to explore that a bit more

00:58:03.811 --> 00:58:05.651
might help the public match up

00:58:05.651 --> 00:58:07.291
their expectations with what they're actually getting

00:58:07.291 --> 00:58:09.791
Thank you

00:58:09.791 --> 00:58:11.551
I see Tim

00:58:11.551 --> 00:58:12.811
wanted to come in

00:58:12.811 --> 00:58:14.951
was it on this point?

00:58:15.171 --> 00:58:16.671
I want to return to the vocational point

00:58:16.671 --> 00:58:19.531
stay with the vocational for a bit

00:58:19.531 --> 00:58:23.871
in terms of international work

00:58:23.871 --> 00:58:27.751
German researchers and policy makers

00:58:27.751 --> 00:58:29.431
just look at you as if you're crazy

00:58:29.431 --> 00:58:32.531
if you say of course you've got the same number of modules

00:58:32.531 --> 00:58:34.151
in all of your occupations haven't you

00:58:34.151 --> 00:58:38.711
or all occupations need to achieve the same level of functional skills

00:58:38.711 --> 00:58:40.111
they just think you're mad

00:58:40.111 --> 00:58:44.451
They have a tradition of adapting the requirements of the

00:58:44.451 --> 00:58:47.151
qualification system to the requirements of each industrial

00:58:47.151 --> 00:58:51.371
sector, and the time frame for refinement and modification of

00:58:51.482 --> 00:58:55.762
is entirely in tune with the clock which is ticking in each sector.

00:58:56.542 --> 00:58:57.422
Now that's very important.

00:58:57.882 --> 00:59:03.402
There are examples of very, very good practice emerging in our industrial training sector,

00:59:03.702 --> 00:59:06.802
and Linda Clark and Chris Winch have done a great deal of work on construction,

00:59:06.942 --> 00:59:08.262
where things are working very well.

00:59:09.622 --> 00:59:12.082
What's interesting there, and it gives us some strong signals,

00:59:12.382 --> 00:59:14.822
there's a degree of self-organisation amongst employers,

00:59:15.602 --> 00:59:18.702
there's a very strong link between the qualifications and work processes,

00:59:18.702 --> 00:59:22.102
and there's a link between qualification and license to practice.

00:59:22.642 --> 00:59:24.142
That all makes tremendous sense.

00:59:25.342 --> 00:59:29.442
What's difficult about construction is that when you listen to employers,

00:59:29.662 --> 00:59:31.922
employers, not employer organizations, but employers,

00:59:32.762 --> 00:59:37.462
what they say is, yes, we've managed to make sense of the latest qualifications

00:59:37.462 --> 00:59:41.342
that have been given to us in terms of our work processes

00:59:41.342 --> 00:59:43.982
and it's now working nicely for us.

00:59:44.562 --> 00:59:48.082
So they have taken diplomas and combined it with NVQs

00:59:48.082 --> 01:00:01.454
and work with FE colleges to get sensible programs in place But isn it a problem that it that way around That what they have are comprehensive learning programs tuned to work processes and they

01:00:01.454 --> 01:00:07.934
have to adapt the national qualifications to those. In other words, we should have a

01:00:07.934 --> 01:00:13.014
responsive qualification system, not one which enjoys that sort of relationship with work.

01:00:15.854 --> 01:00:16.454
Ron.

01:00:16.454 --> 01:00:20.614
Could I support Tim with that?

01:00:20.934 --> 01:00:24.774
It seems to me that what we tend to do

01:00:24.774 --> 01:00:27.794
is to believe that we've got to make...

01:00:27.794 --> 01:00:30.314
It's because of the fairness, and I understand the fairness,

01:00:30.914 --> 01:00:33.914
it's because of adapting the notion of fairness

01:00:33.914 --> 01:00:36.834
that we equate that with equality

01:00:36.834 --> 01:00:40.994
and then translate equality into equivalence.

01:00:42.034 --> 01:00:44.674
And equivalence then means that we believe

01:00:44.674 --> 01:00:46.754
that we have to have a common

01:00:46.754 --> 01:00:48.374
system that the

01:00:48.374 --> 01:00:50.974
end users have to adapt

01:00:50.974 --> 01:00:51.334
to.

01:00:52.434 --> 01:01:04.307
That is quite a different approach to one which might start by saying what we really want is a system which is responsive to where the end users want you

01:01:04.447 --> 01:01:11.087
And if that means that your standard setting through the curriculum and through attainment

01:01:11.087 --> 01:01:15.327
has to be differential, then we have to live with it.

01:01:16.147 --> 01:01:20.087
The problem is, that's the debate we haven't been having.

01:01:22.627 --> 01:01:24.467
It seems we've got a lot of heads nodding.

01:01:25.147 --> 01:01:26.127
Astasia, you wanted to?

01:01:26.287 --> 01:01:30.107
Yes, just on the employer relationship and the vocational qualifications, crucially.

01:01:30.207 --> 01:01:38.247
I think that there's a very bogus commitment, both from the part of the government and actually, sadly, on the part of many examining boards about vocational qualifications.

01:01:38.247 --> 01:01:47.707
I think it's being utilised as a good way of being able to ratchet up achievement by using what are not vocational qualifications.

01:01:47.867 --> 01:01:50.147
I'm particularly talking about GCSE equivalents.

01:01:50.147 --> 01:01:52.487
We're talking about pseudo-vocational,

01:01:52.487 --> 01:01:55.047
they're not really vocational, they're pseudo-academic.

01:01:55.047 --> 01:02:08.220
And we know very well from a lot of employers I mean to take construction as an example what they saying is we do prefer Eastern Europeans actually because when they come into construction they have a solid foundation in geography they know if we send them to Birmingham where Birmingham

01:02:08.220 --> 01:02:12.920
is for example, what we don't want is somebody who's done a GCSE equivalent in construction

01:02:12.920 --> 01:02:17.920
who's learnt a bit about construction or what people in construction do which is really

01:02:17.920 --> 01:02:22.760
not very useful and I think that that's highly problematic not least because it's depriving

01:02:22.760 --> 01:02:27.240
a lot of kids have actually a solid foundation. Why? Because we think it's better for them to

01:02:27.240 --> 01:02:31.140
achieve a higher grade in something that's not terribly useful than a lower grade in something

01:02:31.140 --> 01:02:37.180
that is useful. But crucially, because I think it's really undermining vocational work. It's

01:02:37.180 --> 01:02:41.900
saying that weaker pupils go into vocational qualifications. It's saying this is what vocational

01:02:41.900 --> 01:02:47.800
work is about when it's absolutely not vocational. And it's also saying that in order to succeed in

01:02:47.800 --> 01:02:53.300
vocational work. You don't need any solid academic skills. And that's a big mistake.

01:02:53.460 --> 01:02:57.560
And if we look at international examples where they're successful in terms of both status

01:02:57.560 --> 01:03:01.620
and in terms of quality, that really isn't the line of reasoning there.

01:03:03.730 --> 01:03:06.110
Lady at the front, repeat your name.

01:03:06.930 --> 01:03:07.850
Yeah, it's Simone.

01:03:08.490 --> 01:03:09.710
Again, please, sorry.

01:03:12.390 --> 01:03:14.010
Yeah, it's Simone Aspys.

01:03:14.090 --> 01:03:19.650
Again, I'll ask a question from the gentleman who just iterated the point I was making.

01:03:20.050 --> 01:03:24.030
The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a very high-regarded award.

01:03:25.310 --> 01:03:27.730
Everybody, lots of people rate it.

01:03:28.130 --> 01:03:32.810
Employers, educationalists, schools, students alike.

01:03:32.810 --> 01:03:36.570
everybody trains at a different level

01:03:36.570 --> 01:03:37.870
but everybody

01:03:37.870 --> 01:03:40.170
leads for the same award

01:03:40.170 --> 01:03:41.470
so for example

01:03:41.470 --> 01:03:44.010
the skills section of the Duke of Brown Award

01:03:44.010 --> 01:03:45.730
you can do an academic

01:03:45.730 --> 01:03:48.230
develop an academic skill

01:03:48.230 --> 01:03:49.970
or you can develop a

01:03:49.970 --> 01:03:51.010
vocational skill

01:03:51.010 --> 01:03:54.270
every student learns at a different level

01:03:54.270 --> 01:03:56.170
so for example you can have two

01:03:56.170 --> 01:03:58.030
students who do

01:03:58.030 --> 01:04:00.150
may want to develop their French

01:04:00.150 --> 01:04:00.890
skills

01:04:00.890 --> 01:04:11.363
One may be able to translate up to the highest level One may only learn a few words in French Everybody achieves differently

01:04:11.963 --> 01:04:14.023
but everybody leaves with the same award

01:04:14.023 --> 01:04:19.623
as long as you participate in the other sections as well.

01:04:19.623 --> 01:04:23.723
But the important thing is, there's no prescribed standards.

01:04:24.363 --> 01:04:26.583
What can we learn from this?

01:04:26.743 --> 01:04:30.763
And I kind of feel that we haven't actually even acknowledged

01:04:30.763 --> 01:04:37.263
possibly there are some lessons that we can learn from that because remember the duke of the world

01:04:37.263 --> 01:04:44.723
is highly regarded nobody's as far as i can see has said the standards have gone down unlike the

01:04:44.723 --> 01:04:54.623
other qualifications and i suspect that's because we are too busy branding rebranding putting

01:04:54.623 --> 01:05:01.723
different grades to changing content. Unlike the Duke of the World where actually it's the

01:05:01.723 --> 01:05:17.796
individual drives their program each individual designs their program and each will attain differently but equally So it really important I really would love to have a response on that Thank you

01:05:18.356 --> 01:05:23.036
Well, I'm going to tell the panel I'd like them to address that when they do their winding up remarks.

01:05:23.236 --> 01:05:28.836
It's an interesting question, one of which is how long would it last if it was actually a passport to university.

01:05:28.836 --> 01:05:29.316
Yes.

01:05:29.316 --> 01:05:31.436
yes

01:05:31.436 --> 01:05:36.576
Tessa Stone, Chief Exec of Brightside UniAid

01:05:36.576 --> 01:05:37.536
an educational charity

01:05:37.536 --> 01:05:41.536
I wanted to come back to the point that Tim and various others have made

01:05:41.536 --> 01:05:45.016
about the proper relationship between

01:05:45.016 --> 01:05:47.256
business, higher education

01:05:47.256 --> 01:05:50.796
and the exam creation systems

01:05:50.796 --> 01:05:53.116
because when I think of the unintended consequences

01:05:53.116 --> 01:05:55.896
of getting that relationship in the wrong order

01:05:55.896 --> 01:06:02.656
is that you see HE and businesses going off and doing their own thing.

01:06:03.656 --> 01:06:06.176
And we've talked quite a lot today, we've heard quite a lot today

01:06:06.176 --> 01:06:19.748
about the professionalism at the heart of our exam standard which I think is fair one of the things that concerns me is that when the exam system is not seen to be fit for purpose

01:06:20.048 --> 01:06:22.908
either for higher education or for business access,

01:06:23.408 --> 01:06:27.928
you then get a sort of sprouting of unprofessionalism

01:06:27.928 --> 01:06:32.668
or people trying to adjust that who are not experts in this area.

01:06:32.668 --> 01:06:34.428
So two specific examples.

01:06:34.568 --> 01:06:36.488
As an ex-HE admissions tutor,

01:06:36.488 --> 01:06:44.168
I know that you introduce additional examination for HE access at your peril.

01:06:44.908 --> 01:06:48.828
There is a considerable social justice question to be raised

01:06:48.828 --> 01:06:53.088
about the growth of additional exams for entry to HE.

01:06:53.308 --> 01:06:54.688
They are vastly differential,

01:06:54.948 --> 01:06:59.008
and certainly when I was involved in creating additional tests,

01:06:59.008 --> 01:07:02.688
we were not doing it from the point of view of experts in testing.

01:07:02.828 --> 01:07:04.128
We may have been experts in our subjects,

01:07:04.128 --> 01:07:08.428
but we didn't know about fair testing for that sort of outcome.

01:07:08.428 --> 01:07:10.568
Likewise, the interesting example at the moment

01:07:10.568 --> 01:07:13.168
of the access to the professions debate,

01:07:13.168 --> 01:07:15.868
where because there is seen to be

01:07:15.979 --> 01:07:20.719
lack of a fair route into various professions,

01:07:21.279 --> 01:07:23.419
the professions are now being brought in at the end to say,

01:07:23.559 --> 01:07:24.519
how can we adjust this?

01:07:24.819 --> 01:07:28.399
We don't understand or we don't or we can't use A-levels,

01:07:28.579 --> 01:07:32.659
therefore we will set an additional set of criteria up

01:07:32.659 --> 01:07:34.619
from the basis of our experience.

01:07:34.619 --> 01:07:36.659
And actually, as part of all the discussions I've had,

01:07:38.139 --> 01:07:40.359
they are not, you know, with the best will in the world

01:07:40.359 --> 01:07:41.499
and from the best of intentions,

01:07:41.939 --> 01:07:44.159
these people are not necessarily best placed

01:07:44.159 --> 01:07:48.399
to implement some of the things that they are intending

01:07:48.399 --> 01:07:52.259
and they are not best placed to put this in the context of a wider education debate

01:07:52.259 --> 01:07:54.139
and that really does concern me.

01:07:55.619 --> 01:07:56.319
Thank you.

01:07:56.619 --> 01:07:59.679
I'm going to take one more question from the back

01:07:59.679 --> 01:08:03.859
and then I'm going to ask the panel to give us about two or three minutes.

01:08:04.699 --> 01:08:08.219
Just summing up, just comment on what's happened in the debate

01:08:08.219 --> 01:08:10.439
or if you want to make a point again, by all means do so.

01:08:10.839 --> 01:08:13.959
Hello, my name is Christine Flatchek, Scottish Qualifications Authority.

01:08:14.159 --> 01:08:29.892
I have two very quick points I think the last two speakers are talking in as you all know in standards speak about the qualification standards That where we define the knowledge and skills And with respect I think that the starting point

01:08:30.192 --> 01:08:37.012
Because the assessment shows, gives an opportunity to achieve the qualification standards.

01:08:37.012 --> 01:08:42.652
So I kind of look at that as the end of the process, the heart of it.

01:08:42.892 --> 01:08:47.132
How do we define the knowledge and skills in the qualifications themselves?

01:08:47.612 --> 01:08:53.312
And then how do we go about proving, if you like, that learners have achieved them?

01:08:53.412 --> 01:08:56.372
And I think that's another very interesting debate.

01:08:56.692 --> 01:09:00.652
The second point is something that Tim Oates mentioned earlier,

01:09:01.012 --> 01:09:04.952
that at the end of the day, statistics are all very well, but it's the candidate script.

01:09:04.952 --> 01:09:07.612
and speaking as just one awarding

01:09:07.612 --> 01:09:09.612
body, I know it happens in Scotland, it certainly

01:09:09.612 --> 01:09:11.672
happens in the rest of the United Kingdom and you'll

01:09:11.672 --> 01:09:13.772
know about it. There has been a program

01:09:13.772 --> 01:09:15.032
of archiving

01:09:15.032 --> 01:09:29.244
candidate evidence over a long period I sure that Ofqual has taken this on from QCA it a legacy programme and that allows the awarding body to do and I will be honest a sampling basis in a limited

01:09:29.244 --> 01:09:34.984
sampling basis, a comparison over time. And the last point I would like to say, certainly

01:09:34.984 --> 01:09:40.164
in SQA, and I'm sure the awarding bodies in England would share this, we are all greatly

01:09:40.164 --> 01:09:49.504
encouraged by the advent of digital evidence so you have now got e-portfolios e-scripts not to the

01:09:49.504 --> 01:09:54.904
same extent but certainly I am involved in this program and I'm looking at instead of having to

01:09:54.904 --> 01:10:02.944
get huge big folders in to keep from the Scottish vocational qualifications we've run a pilot where

01:10:02.944 --> 01:10:09.444
where we now have e-evidence. So just for the logistics of it, because there is a cost

01:10:09.444 --> 01:10:15.004
to store lots and lots of candidate evidence, but that programme has been ongoing and as

01:10:15.004 --> 01:10:31.217
I say personally I encouraged and hopeful that we get much more efficient by having more e Having spoken though to the Archive of Scotland I think there is an issue about how long digital evidence will last but that enough and we had paper for centuries

01:10:31.217 --> 01:10:38.237
but that's another yet another debate perhaps thank you now i'm going to turn to our panel

01:10:38.237 --> 01:10:42.977
and ask them to give us a final roundup of thoughts i'm going to start from this end

01:10:42.977 --> 01:10:49.517
with anastasia deval from the think tank civitas i think for me the clearest point which i feel has

01:10:49.517 --> 01:10:53.917
been reiterated is that you can't look at exams in isolation you have to look at them as part of

01:10:53.917 --> 01:10:58.717
a process that's why I do think that a lot of comparing one paper from one year with from

01:10:58.717 --> 01:11:05.357
another year is in some ways not actually a very valuable exercise I think it's very clear that at

01:11:05.357 --> 01:11:09.897
the moment exams have and I think it's legitimate to say been devalued to an extent and that

01:11:09.897 --> 01:11:16.157
devaluing has happened through the process the fact that exams are currently used too often to

01:11:16.157 --> 01:11:20.597
prove success. In fact, one example, and I hope it's not Cambridge Assessment, isn't there a tagline

01:11:20.597 --> 01:11:25.877
achieving success or something similar, which in itself is actually very significant, that that's

01:11:25.877 --> 01:11:28.117
what we're seeing exams as doing. Not being

01:11:28.228 --> 01:11:31.948
about testing what kids know but actually proving success.

01:11:32.908 --> 01:11:36.028
The problem, I think, ultimately is coming from the centre.

01:11:36.148 --> 01:11:39.148
And from the centre, I do mean government, but I also mean other organisations,

01:11:39.328 --> 01:11:41.188
and I do mean at local authority level.

01:11:41.308 --> 01:11:43.608
And this is having an enormous pressure on schools.

01:11:44.268 --> 01:11:48.168
What is happening is that the aim is to ratchet up performance, sadly,

01:11:48.328 --> 01:11:50.088
and not to ratchet up learning.

01:11:50.608 --> 01:11:53.688
And that is very difficult because, obviously, the primary purpose initially

01:11:53.688 --> 01:11:57.148
of ratcheting up performance was to prove that there was more learning going on.

01:11:57.148 --> 01:12:09.868
But I think particularly as this government had a massive commitment, a very good commitment towards boosting learning, boosting opportunities, perhaps when it became less successful, things weren't going quite as rapidly as they'd wanted to.

01:12:10.088 --> 01:12:13.408
That's when performance rather than actual learning took over.

01:12:13.728 --> 01:12:45.120
I think in order to sever that relationship again between performance and performativity and get back to performance and learning we do need to make sure that there much less opportunity for government to intervene in terms of pressure but also the market system of examining boards is problematic because yes I think it is right to say that exam boards are responding to this need to find weaker qualifications weaker exams which do allow higher performance and I think it fair to say that they responding rather well and that is a problem

01:12:46.960 --> 01:12:47.520
Gordon.

01:12:47.520 --> 01:12:51.800
I'll just go back to my accountability issue

01:12:51.800 --> 01:12:54.320
I think one of the themes that's come out of this

01:12:54.320 --> 01:12:57.540
is the pressure exams are under

01:12:57.540 --> 01:12:59.660
in terms of the use of the results

01:12:59.660 --> 01:13:02.540
in this accountability system we have here

01:13:02.540 --> 01:13:06.140
and this must be one of the fiercest accountability systems

01:13:06.140 --> 01:13:08.000
on the planet

01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:12.000
in terms of accountability that drives both the curriculum

01:13:12.000 --> 01:13:13.980
and the assessment and the results

01:13:13.980 --> 01:13:20.640
So we're in a tighter grip than most countries where you may regulate the curriculum,

01:13:21.140 --> 01:13:27.540
but very few actually regulate all the parts of it to quite the same extent.

01:13:28.160 --> 01:13:43.013
How we can move away from this kind of fierce accountability and all the unintended consequences that we been hearing about I think is critical And I think where that leads in things like equivalence is how tightly do we try and make things equivalence

01:13:43.193 --> 01:13:49.773
or do we, like the Duke of Edinburgh Award, do we, or Tim's point with other countries' vocational qualifications,

01:13:50.293 --> 01:13:58.013
can we allow ourselves a more flexible system where the currency value of the qualification itself will do the job?

01:13:58.993 --> 01:14:01.453
We have not talked about things like music grades.

01:14:01.773 --> 01:14:06.473
Nobody touches those because people know that, in a sense,

01:14:06.553 --> 01:14:09.073
they know there's a standard that you leave them, you back off.

01:14:10.033 --> 01:14:14.473
Could we be a bit more relaxed about this in other parts of the system?

01:14:16.813 --> 01:14:18.153
Two issues.

01:14:18.993 --> 01:14:21.293
Firstly, this public understanding issue.

01:14:21.873 --> 01:14:26.013
Today, for me, has been about being a bit more honest in a public setting

01:14:26.013 --> 01:14:28.293
about some of the shortcomings of exams.

01:14:28.433 --> 01:14:29.953
I'm afraid I can't go with this view

01:14:29.953 --> 01:14:31.873
that we shouldn't tell people about this

01:14:31.873 --> 01:14:47.886
because it going to be uncomfortable We live in a modern society where thankfully we have a lot more information about a lot of things and I hope I not being over dramatic by saying we know much more about poverty we know much more about child abuse now than we used to There are uncomfortable things

01:14:47.886 --> 01:14:52.546
to hear about but I think it's a good thing that we know about them and it's not the same category

01:14:52.546 --> 01:14:57.306
but I would use the same argument. I think we need to know about the shortcomings of exams and

01:14:57.306 --> 01:15:02.766
assessment and we need to face up to some of the uncomfortable truths about that and for many of

01:15:02.766 --> 01:15:08.646
the decisions we want to make we need to look elsewhere for good evidence second point the key

01:15:08.646 --> 01:15:13.226
thing in the debate for me today has been about the relationship between curriculum and assessment

01:15:13.226 --> 01:15:20.686
assessment should follow curriculum it shouldn't lead it and a lot of people have talked about good

01:15:20.686 --> 01:15:27.066
education improving standards of education making education more relevant to young people and adults

01:15:27.066 --> 01:15:30.406
allowing people to engage more in the learning process

01:15:30.406 --> 01:15:31.906
and learn more.

01:15:31.906 --> 01:15:33.966
That's the important discussion.

01:15:33.966 --> 01:15:37.306
Assessment then needs to follow that, not destroy it.

01:15:37.306 --> 01:15:40.366
The history of the relationship between assessment and education

01:15:40.476 --> 01:15:45.296
is that far too often it's assessment that messes up education.

01:15:45.736 --> 01:15:50.436
You get bad backwash effects, you get teachers under too much pressure to teach to a test.

01:15:50.636 --> 01:15:52.276
That's bad for education.

01:15:53.616 --> 01:15:54.176
Tim?

01:15:54.696 --> 01:16:00.476
Well, I too, as Roger does, take heart from the discussion that we've had about the relationship between assessment and curriculum

01:16:00.476 --> 01:16:04.136
and reinvigorating the relationship between curriculum and assessment.

01:16:04.536 --> 01:16:05.916
We believe that's absolutely critical.

01:16:07.076 --> 01:16:08.036
A couple of points.

01:16:08.036 --> 01:16:24.296
I just repeat my emphasis on the need for more openness and honesty about whether elevation in the numbers gaining a particular grade derive from a genuine underlying improvement in attainment in each and every case.

01:16:25.156 --> 01:16:29.336
And openness and honesty and examination of the evidence relating to that is fundamental.

01:16:29.476 --> 01:16:30.596
That's why we're having the debate.

01:16:32.016 --> 01:16:34.656
Also, in talking about change, I'm not arguing against change.

01:16:34.656 --> 01:16:52.529
In many ways I arguing for a very different sort of accountability What I arguing is that changing qualifications should be driven by groups such as users by subject communities And that makes the qualifications much more accountable But it a different sort of accountability

01:16:53.469 --> 01:16:59.709
It ensures that our qualifications are fit for purpose and are linked into the communities that actually require them.

01:17:00.469 --> 01:17:05.849
And of course we should use evidence to modify each and every qualification, each discrete qualification.

01:17:05.849 --> 01:17:10.509
and therefore we need to undertake systematic inquiry into subjects, into sectors,

01:17:11.029 --> 01:17:14.409
and ensure that we take that evidence into account in terms of the changes which we make.

01:17:14.769 --> 01:17:18.629
That all points away from the direction of wholesale system change

01:17:18.629 --> 01:17:22.789
and more towards partnership arrangements in subjects and sectors

01:17:22.789 --> 01:17:24.809
in order to drive the change in qualifications.

01:17:25.189 --> 01:17:28.149
That would bring a new form of accountability to the qualification system.

01:17:30.789 --> 01:17:34.749
And finally, a point which we touched on briefly and may seem arcane,

01:17:34.749 --> 01:17:38.749
but in a sense is opening up a new battleground

01:17:38.749 --> 01:17:51.782
and that the debate between judgments and statistics judgment and statistics as the basis for making particular awards and deciding upon the proportion getting an A or a B in a particular year

01:17:52.542 --> 01:17:58.502
That actually is a fundamental technical debate. And in terms of opening up public understanding,

01:17:58.862 --> 01:18:03.542
that's not a debate we should be having behind closed doors. We need to ensure that the public

01:18:03.542 --> 01:18:08.502
are involved in that debate, policy communities, user groups and so on, because actually the

01:18:08.502 --> 01:18:13.622
accuracy and fairness of qualifications is a preeminent concern of an awarding body,

01:18:14.082 --> 01:18:17.942
and within that we're concerned with the issues of justice which are associated with it.

01:18:18.602 --> 01:18:26.162
Now, and we have at the moment fundamental tension between groups, organizations, some

01:18:26.162 --> 01:18:31.562
driving the system more towards statistics and away from judgment, and others pushing

01:18:31.562 --> 01:18:32.522
in the opposite direction.

01:18:33.702 --> 01:18:38.482
I think what we need to add to the debate we've had today is a very open and intentional

01:18:38.482 --> 01:18:43.682
intelligible debate about the changes which that kind of movement represents.

01:18:44.682 --> 01:18:54.994
Thank you May I point out this debate will continue for one more month on the Cambridge assessment or accessible through the Cambridge assessment website

01:18:55.254 --> 01:19:01.514
So anybody who hasn't said what they wanted to say or wants to take issue with what has been said, please input into it.

01:19:01.514 --> 01:19:17.654
We will be taking everything that's happened on the exam standards debate website together with what we've discussed today and producing a paper out of this, which we will then be sending to government, parliament and stakeholders of one kind or another.

01:19:18.214 --> 01:19:26.954
I'm glad to say, I think in stark contrast to the normal summer debate, this has been sane, sensible, much more light than heat.

01:19:26.954 --> 01:19:28.754
thank you to our audience

01:19:28.754 --> 01:19:31.394
online and it only remains

01:19:31.394 --> 01:19:33.554
for me to say thank you

01:19:33.554 --> 01:19:35.474
to the panel and ask you to show your

01:19:35.474 --> 01:19:37.454
appreciation for them in a sense

01:19:37.454 --> 01:19:39.354
leading us rather than

01:19:39.354 --> 01:19:41.454
directing us down the

01:19:41.454 --> 01:19:43.494
passages we've gone and to say

01:19:43.494 --> 01:19:45.534
thank you to all of you for coming and to wish you

01:19:45.534 --> 01:19:46.874
a good afternoon. Thank you.

01:19:46.874 --> 01:19:48.874
Applause

01:19:48.874 --> 01:19:50.874
Applause