WEBVTT

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Finally, after all that, let me introduce myself.

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I'm Bene't Steinberg, Group Director of Public Affairs at Cambridge Assessment,

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and your chair for this debate.

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I'm delighted to welcome you all here on behalf of Cambridge Assessment.

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The group, which is the Department of the University of Cambridge

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and a not-for-profit organisation, is made up of three exam boards,

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OCR in the UK, Cambridge International Examinations,

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and Cambridge English for Speakers of Other Languages,

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together with the largest research capacity of its type in the world.

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Today, we'll be hearing about school exams and debating on what's happening on standards today.

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Examination standards and the perception of them are of principal concern to society

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and dominate many educational and media debates.

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Questions we expect to address today, but that rather depends upon you, include who owns the standard,

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should standards rest on links between schools, higher education, employers and awarding bodies,

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or be mediated through government and its agents Just how much information is required to maintain public confidence Some ground rules This is a debate not a question and answer If you want to pick

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up on a point made by someone else in the audience, feel free. If you want to make a statement,

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not ask a question, do so. All I ask is that you do it through the chair, me, and you make

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your points as concisely as this complex issue allows. I will cut people off if I think they've

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made their point already. Secondly, you'll note we are filming the discussion for the benefit of a

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much wider audience that couldn't make it to the RSA today. Please ignore the cameras, but please

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make sure if you are asked to speak that you wait for a microphone to arrive in front of you,

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stand up, that's at the request of the cameras, and please give us your name and the name

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of your institution. Let me outline the day for you. Each member of our distinguished

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panel will give us 10 minutes of their approach to the issue We then have a maximum of 15 minutes for clarification and questions Then we break for 20 minutes for coffee which will give you all a chance to decide when and where to weigh in on the debate

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In your packs you have question sheets, and those who wish to submit discussion points in that manner can hand them in at the beginning of the main session, which will take us through to 1 o'clock.

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Some interested parties have already supplied comments and questions via the web,

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and I shall feed these in when I feel it appropriate.

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We're also streaming the event live over the Cambridge Assessment website,

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and some comments may come in to us via that route,

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which I will also add in when appropriate,

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and I would encourage those of you watching, as it were, at home to submit your questions online.

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This debate actually started online three months ago,

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beginning with a paper from our Group Director of Assessment, Research and Development, Tim Oates.

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Tim paper can be found in your packs and Tim is going to start us off Tim Good morning everyone Thanks Bene't You be pleased to hear that we going to clarify

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this whole area by making it far more complex. In essence, that's the challenge. We are concerned

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that the public debate is not sufficiently sophisticated to engage with the underlying

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issues which provide great challenge to us as an awarding body but also to the

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education community as a whole. Why the debate? Why should we raise this matter

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now in terms of standards within public examinations? And it's essentially

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because of two issues. One is the fact that from various sources in terms of the

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research community and the development community there is evidence of the

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existence of mechanisms which could create grade drift in the operation and

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processes of examinations.

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So the possible existence of those mechanisms is critical.

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I'll outline some of them in just a moment.

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The second is that there is evidence from diverse sources, not one of them definitive in terms of providing a simple answer to the simple question, are standards going up or down?

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But evidence from diverse sources, enough to stimulate anxiety, and this is what Simon Liebus raised in his response on the online discussion, that there is sufficient evidence to generate concern and therefore open up a public debate.

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The first thing we want to do is to promote clarity,

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not by rendering the debate impenetrably complex,

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but by clarifying some of the fundamental issues associated with standards.

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And the first thing is just to be very clear about which particular aspect of standards

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or what block of standards one is actually discussing.

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We would separate the following.

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standards of demand i the demand which is represented by a particular examination and the questions within it So what is being asked of students Content standards well of course we have to ensure that qualifications are up to date

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And so content standards change over time as one necessarily has to update qualifications.

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But that's to do with the stuff which is in the qualification and whether it actually meets the requirements of society,

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to the economy and individuals.

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And thirdly, standards of attainment,

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the things which young people, candidates,

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actually know, understand, and can do.

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So we do need to be very clear when we discuss

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is there drift in standards, either up or down,

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in which respect are we actually discussing

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this very, very slippery concept, standards.

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We then argue that one needs to be interested in standards

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for a variety of reasons and purposes.

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One is standards over time and some panellists will argue that it an irrational fixation to be concerned with holding standards static over time What one needs in society and in the education and training system are qualifications which are fit for purpose

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So holding irrationally to an old-fashioned standard actually renders our system inflexible and unresponsive.

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But nonetheless, we do have some concerns about standards over time.

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After all, individuals apply to universities in the same year with qualification outcomes which have been derived by examinations taken in different years.

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There are standards between specifications.

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An individual awarding body has different specifications in the same subject at the same level, level 2 or level 3.

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And indeed, different awarding bodies offer specifications, examinations in the same subject at the same level.

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they should be comparable to ensure that fairness and justice is delivered across the system in terms of access to a particular grade.

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And then of course we have the very thorny question of standards between subjects Should physics and mathematics as cognate subjects be of the same level of demand Should psychology and physics be of the same level of demand And so on

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We would challenge the notion that there should be, again, a rational pursuit of some notion of common standard across the entire system in terms of subjects.

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There are issues of standards between types of qualifications, academic and vocational.

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And, of course, there are issues of teaching standards and standards of education.

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But I'm not going to deal with those today.

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Briefly, what on earth are those mechanisms which I referred to earlier?

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The existence of mechanisms which could contribute to grade drift.

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Well, there are many and various,

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and this is where we need to become more complex in our thinking

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to understand what's actually occurring.

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We have had a period of constant change

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in the structure and content of qualifications,

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and one of my concluding points

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is that if you affect continual, inappropriate,

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unnecessary change in qualifications,

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It makes holding any standard extremely difficult.

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Maintaining standards in times of change is one of the most challenging things that an

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awarding body has to confront.

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We've elaborated the mechanisms for doing this, but if you invoke unnecessary change

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in qualifications, either form or content, you're providing an unnecessary challenge

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to standards maintenance.

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We've all assiduously worked within the assessment community at removing bias, improving the

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quality of our exam items, and improving the transparency of the assessments, removing

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what Dennis Lawton used to refer to as ambush assessment, hitting people hard with things

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that they don't expect at a time that they don't quite expect yet.

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Third issue is benefit of the doubt. The system works in terms of justice towards ensuring benefit of the doubt is given.

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The work that was done by Desmond Nuttall many years ago and by Mike Creswell actually looked at the extent to which there may be subtle processes within the awarding process where each year you can get a very small increase in the numbers attaining a grade based on the benefit of the doubt.

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There been vast improvement in the availability of materials mark schemes textbooks driven by the performativity agenda The concern for deriving a good grade has increased enormously as we increased the pressure on schools and teachers in terms of accountability

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And that's meant that there's been a dramatic rise in the request for clear materials about what it is that you need to do to attain a grade.

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that will lead to elevated improvement,

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just in terms of the efficiency of the processes

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around preparing people for examinations.

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That doesn't necessarily represent an improvement in underlying attainment.

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There's been a strong emphasis on inclusion across the system.

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Awarding bodies have delivered on the inclusion agenda.

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Again, this drive towards inclusion can increase the numbers getting higher grades.

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And, of course, the whole system is, as Michael Barber in this very room,

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five years ago, suggested very strongly,

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oriented very, very tightly on examination performance

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in terms of making the system more accountable

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and more effective educationally Modularization has an impact It encourages boys who might perhaps leave everything until the last moment in terms of an examination to have to work right from the first few weeks of the course

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I mean, they're attaining more and a higher number of higher grades will be the result.

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But also the routes through qualifications have become more complex.

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And in many ways this means that young people can optimize their progress through education and thus optimize their attainment.

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Again, leading to an increase in the numbers

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attaining the highest grades.

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Crucially, we have changing cohorts.

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I mean, some of that changes just because people

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are choosing subjects in which they will excel,

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or they get feedback from their AS qualification

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in the first year of their sixth form studies,

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which tell them that they're good at that subject

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and bad at that, even though they thought

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it was the other way around when they started the course.

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And therefore, they can then optimize their performance

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when they move on to A2 in terms of subject choice.

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And there has been a massive investment in education Undoubtedly Michael Barber increase in pressure in respect to the performance of the education system was followed by resources Now the problem is within that list of mechanisms

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there are mechanisms which just result in an improvement in the numbers attaining higher

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grades without an improvement in the underlying standard of attainment of young people, and

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there are mechanisms which indeed do contribute to a genuine improvement in underlying attainment.

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The critical issue really is how much of each.

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So just to conclude, where to from here in terms of my perspective?

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We should understand with precision the impact of efforts to improve the standards of attainment,

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separating out the contribution of one type of mechanism from another type of mechanism.

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So we can genuinely understand how our efforts to improve

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the underlying attainment of young people,

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including the financial resources we put into that effort,

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how that's actually paying off.

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Secondly, we have to reduce the frequency

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of scope and change in qualifications if that frequency and scope of change is driven by

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unnecessary change in respect of the content and form of qualifications.

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Arbitrary change is not helpful. Frequent arbitrary change is extremely unhelpful in

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terms of maintaining standards. We're not arguing against change in qualifications.

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Of course they have to be updated. But unnecessary change threatens standards.

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And as Ben is implied, we believe that qualifications should be owned through partnership between schools, higher education, employers and awarding bodies.

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Opening up this debate is not intended to say that awarding bodies know best in respect of all aspects of qualifications.

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What we're arguing is that awarding bodies have particular expertise in terms of measurement.

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In terms of the content of qualifications, their location within society, within the economy, their role within selection,

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awarding bodies in order to deliver that have to work in close partnership with subject communities and with the users of the qualifications But the notion of partnership there is absolutely critical What should drive it all

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Fitness for purpose, clarity of purpose and validity.

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Those should be the things that we are concerned with when we discuss standards.

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So what I would argue for is,

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strongly, we should resist illegitimate change in the format and content qualifications.

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we should differentiate the contribution

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which is made by the different mechanisms we outline

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and on that basis

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we hope that we can elucidate the factors and issues at play

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in order to better inform the public debate

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and the key question of whether standards have gone up or down

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Thank you Chair

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Thank you Tim

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We're now going to hear from Professor Roger Murphy

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who's an educational researcher with an international reputation

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for his work in the field of educational assessment and evaluation.

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He currently director for the Centre of Developing and Evaluating Lifelong Learning at the Institute of Research into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

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at the School of Education at the University of Nottingham.

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Professor Murphy is also Director of the Visual Learning Lab,

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which is a HEFKE-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

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He's worked in higher education for over 30 years,

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and during that time he's been President of the British Educational Research Association,

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a member of the Educational Panel for the National Research Assessment Exercise

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and Dean of Education and Head of the School of Education at the University of Nottingham.

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He's the author of a large number of books and articles about educational assessment.

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Roger.

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Can I start by just congratulating Cambridge Assessment for having the courage to organise today

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and to let a few independent voices onto the top table.

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I think this is a very important debate we're having today.

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It a debate that in many respects we shied away from in the UK over a long period of time I think we need to have the debate I taken a slightly provocative take on the title of today and called my input School Exam Standards Certainly Haven Fallen

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That's addressing the simplistic notion, the kind of popular media notion that when the

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results come out each year, if there's been any kind of improvement, standards must have

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fallen. Or indeed, actually, if the results are slightly less good than they were the

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previous year, that also proves that standards have fallen. We do have some newspapers who are

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very keen on the idea of standards falling.

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So one of the things that needs to be said, and it's tricky to know who's on what side in this

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debate, but it does need to be said that in the UK we've got a highly sophisticated system of

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public examinations. The irony is, I think, that people all around the world tend to look to the

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in the UK for advice when they're setting up exam systems.

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People who have sophisticated exam systems of their own

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often look enviously at our system.

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Well, it's a multi-billion pound enterprise.

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It's very, very professional.

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I think one of the characteristics of our school exams in the UK

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that people are envious of

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is the relationship to the taught curriculum in schools.

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We're not in a kind of American testing scenario

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where kids do tests that relate vaguely to what they do at school

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but not at all well.

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We've got a tradition in public exams

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of trying to follow the curriculum,

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to update the curriculum, make it as relevant as we can,

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and have good standing examinations that relate to that curriculum.

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That, I think, is both a strength and part of the problem,

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because it's very complex when you're changing the curriculum

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and you're changing the assessments to match that curriculum.

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The exams we got today GCSE and A have a long history really going back nearly 60 years I know GCSE doesn go back that long but A does and GCSE relies a lot on the prior history of O and CSE exams

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As I've said already, those examinations have not remained static over that time.

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If they had, the standards, the simplistic standards debate,

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I think, as Tim has already said, would be much easier

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If we just stuck with the 1952 papers or whatever, kept giving them year after year, then in one sense the comparison would be more straightforward.

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But it would be a ridiculous thing to do because the curriculum has changed so much and indeed we've got better at assessing students.

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So for a whole variety of good reasons the exams have had to keep changing.

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so the thing that needs to be said today and i in the lead up to this i've been a bit misrepresented

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in some of the papers is that in 2010 the examinations that students do this year

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will be serious rigorous hard test of the learning they been doing in schools and and if the media want to attack that then I think it unfortunate And then we come to the nub I think of perhaps where

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my position might be a bit more different from Tim's.

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What I want to say is that despite all of their strengths,

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the UK examination grades are, and can ever only be,

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approximate indicators of student achievement.

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and there's a whole load of reasons why that is

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one of the easy things about our exam system is we end up with very simple results we try and

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reduce everything to a few letter grades we try to summarize the complicated pattern of educational

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achievement of an individual child into a letter grade many of you in this audience today are work

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very closely with the exam system, you'll know jolly well that two students with, say,

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a grade C in GCSE mathematics they have virtually nothing in common with each other at all Even if they done the same board and taken their exams through the same awarding body they might have got 43 by totally different routes

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The mathematics they know is different.

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So we've got a simple grading system.

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We add up all of those grades.

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We look at comparisons between schools,

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between local education authorities.

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It's a very simplistic approach.

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But go back to the actual individual grade

00:20:06.754 --> 00:20:09.054
that an individual candidate gets.

00:20:09.894 --> 00:20:11.494
They have sat an examination,

00:20:12.154 --> 00:20:15.374
and often it will be a formal externally set examination,

00:20:15.654 --> 00:20:18.734
which has sampled the syllabus that they've been following.

00:20:19.434 --> 00:20:21.294
Any examination is a sample.

00:20:21.954 --> 00:20:24.354
And we all know that we can be lucky and unlucky

00:20:24.354 --> 00:20:27.134
in the sample that's chosen when we go into an exam room.

00:20:27.654 --> 00:20:29.814
Your heart sinks when you start reading the questions.

00:20:29.994 --> 00:20:31.834
I've revised all the wrong things.

00:20:32.294 --> 00:20:35.214
This is one of the arbitrary things of examinations for the individual.

00:20:35.214 --> 00:20:39.454
They may be very lucky or they may be very unlucky with the sample of questions that

00:20:39.454 --> 00:20:44.014
they're presented with. Give that same candidate a different sample of questions on a

00:20:44.103 --> 00:20:49.043
different day and they're almost certainly get a different grade but it's even more complicated

00:20:49.043 --> 00:20:53.923
than that and you know most of you know this too well but give the same candidate the same

00:20:53.923 --> 00:20:58.923
examination paper on a different day and they will perform differently we have good days and

00:20:58.923 --> 00:21:02.963
bad days we're human beings we're not the same every day of the week

00:21:02.963 --> 00:21:07.563
and of course it's more complicated than that

00:21:07.563 --> 00:21:12.563
because that takes us into the world of marking and grading.

00:21:13.123 --> 00:21:15.243
Some of my own research in examinations

00:21:15.243 --> 00:21:17.283
has been about the marking of examinations

00:21:17.283 --> 00:21:20.023
and that we have a good body of work now

00:21:20.023 --> 00:21:23.043
showing that even with the most professional approach

00:21:23.043 --> 00:21:25.823
to marking that we have in our awarding bodies,

00:21:26.403 --> 00:21:28.103
you cannot, in subjects,

00:21:28.263 --> 00:21:31.603
particularly the ones that rely on essay-type answers,

00:21:32.063 --> 00:21:33.443
you cannot have a system

00:21:33.443 --> 00:21:36.163
that is absolutely accurate and reliable.

00:21:36.163 --> 00:21:54.560
Markers are asked to use their judgment their given advice and standardization but they vary And all the published work shows that that variance is quite considerable and means that we have to be careful in the use of an exam grade because it not an exact precise judgment

00:21:55.260 --> 00:22:01.300
It's an approximation, and you could easily have got a grade higher or a grade lower

00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:04.300
for a whole variety of reasons if you're an examination candidate.

00:22:04.300 --> 00:22:11.620
when we try to make comparisons between subjects

00:22:11.620 --> 00:22:13.960
things get even more complicated

00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:19.500
we give the same letter grades in different subjects at A level GCSE

00:22:19.500 --> 00:22:22.980
we say that a grade A in mathematics

00:22:22.980 --> 00:22:26.580
is in some way like a grade A in chemistry

00:22:26.580 --> 00:22:30.480
is in some way like a grade A in French

00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:34.700
That just can't be the case.

00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:35.920
They are different subjects.

00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:37.740
It's a chalk and cheese discussion.

00:22:38.520 --> 00:22:40.120
If you're comparing a grade A in French

00:22:40.120 --> 00:22:41.260
with a grade A in mathematics,

00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:59.537
these are two completely different things It probably rather misleading to call both of them grade A but we do it We cannot have precision in that area And the same thing really applies to the thing that Tim and I think agree about

00:22:59.657 --> 00:23:02.537
is one of the most difficult aspects of this debate about examination standards,

00:23:03.217 --> 00:23:05.557
which is the standards over time debate.

00:23:06.157 --> 00:23:11.457
I don't think our public examination system is the best way to address standards over time.

00:23:11.817 --> 00:23:13.437
That's not its prime purpose.

00:23:13.537 --> 00:23:22.897
Its prime purpose, I would argue, is to give grades to individuals to help sort out what they're going to do next at GCSE, whether they go on to A-level.

00:23:23.277 --> 00:23:28.097
At A-level, for many of them, what kind of employment or higher education they might enter.

00:23:28.977 --> 00:23:42.317
This idea of looking at patterns of grades over as much as 60 years and trying to sort out has education in the UK, England and Wales, and Ireland, I should say, got better on the basis of this year's results.

00:23:42.317 --> 00:23:56.734
the results will never answer that question okay have a look at them but there so much complication behind them you know the the number of children staying in schools now is we delighted has gone up the curriculum changed out of all recognition

00:23:56.734 --> 00:24:01.994
people have got smarter about preparing for exams the awarding bodies have got better about allowing

00:24:01.994 --> 00:24:08.134
candidates a range of of ways of showing what they can they can do so the thing has changed out of all

00:24:08.134 --> 00:24:14.094
recognition so these crude comparisons over years mean nothing at all really in terms of the detailed

00:24:14.094 --> 00:24:15.554
standards over time debate.

00:24:17.394 --> 00:24:21.694
So my final point is really to summarise and say that

00:24:21.694 --> 00:24:24.934
we need to treat exam results as approximate measures.

00:24:25.614 --> 00:24:28.814
And the problem with this debate is I think people trying to read too much

00:24:28.814 --> 00:24:32.154
into exam results and use them to try and answer questions

00:24:32.154 --> 00:24:33.214
that they can't answer.

00:24:33.954 --> 00:24:34.634
Thanks very much.

00:24:35.294 --> 00:24:36.214
Thank you, Roger.

00:24:37.894 --> 00:24:42.634
Right, moving from somebody very heavy in the research field

00:24:42.634 --> 00:24:44.874
to perhaps a bit more of a practitioner.

00:24:52.923 --> 00:24:54.043
National Union of Teachers.

00:24:55.183 --> 00:24:57.563
John studied fine art at Reading University

00:24:57.563 --> 00:25:00.963
under the tuition of Claude Rogers and Terry Frost, RA.

00:25:01.903 --> 00:25:03.343
And after gaining his degree,

00:25:03.443 --> 00:25:05.463
he completed a teaching course at Goldsmith College

00:25:05.463 --> 00:25:08.923
and spent a number of years teaching art and literacy

00:25:08.923 --> 00:25:11.903
at Bowes Secondary School and Templars Specialist School.

00:25:12.663 --> 00:25:15.743
So he has enormous amounts of experience on the ground.

00:25:16.163 --> 00:25:16.403
John.

00:25:16.883 --> 00:25:17.623
Thank you.

00:25:19.803 --> 00:25:21.903
I'm very, very aware that there are colleagues

00:25:21.903 --> 00:25:23.783
from other teacher organizations in this room,

00:25:24.103 --> 00:25:25.963
looking at me in a kind of glinty-eyed way.

00:25:28.023 --> 00:25:29.843
So I'm going to have to be very careful, Jeff.

00:25:32.703 --> 00:25:36.283
And also I want to apologize because I'm going to go at quarter past 11

00:25:36.283 --> 00:25:40.563
because Vernon and Ed have given us a job to do,

00:25:41.343 --> 00:25:45.683
which is to tell school governing bodies

00:25:45.683 --> 00:25:49.703
to instruct headteachers to remain absent from school

00:25:49.703 --> 00:26:00.080
at times when the tests are due to take place while another person administers the key stage two tests So that came out last night and we going to have to consider the implications of that

00:26:01.060 --> 00:26:06.080
The effect on our NEHT colleagues in particular, I can only possibly guess,

00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:12.540
but it probably will unify governing bodies and headteachers in a way that nothing else can.

00:26:12.760 --> 00:26:13.860
So all good for that.

00:26:16.500 --> 00:26:20.060
And also to say thank you very much for Cambridge assessment.

00:26:20.140 --> 00:26:22.240
We have a long-standing association.

00:26:23.260 --> 00:26:25.540
Tim came to speak to our national education last summer

00:26:25.540 --> 00:26:27.800
in the graveyard slot on Saturday afternoon,

00:26:27.860 --> 00:26:30.580
and no one fell asleep, which was fantastic, actually.

00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:32.540
It was great. It was a really super performance.

00:26:33.040 --> 00:26:35.480
And the debate that Cambridge Assessment has raised

00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:36.860
is absolutely spot on.

00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:41.520
And your key question, i.e., what do we mean by standards,

00:26:42.260 --> 00:26:43.680
is absolutely right.

00:26:43.960 --> 00:26:45.860
I had a colleague who was quite rigorous,

00:26:45.860 --> 00:26:47.880
and I remain in his shadow,

00:26:47.880 --> 00:27:03.638
and that we should be talking about performance against standards all the time It a word standards that been used inaccurately by politicians over the years and conflated with the idea of performance And I agree with Roger as well actually

00:27:03.778 --> 00:27:09.758
that a discussion about how you set the standard is separate from examinations as well.

00:27:10.678 --> 00:27:12.878
So to move on then and some reflections.

00:27:15.238 --> 00:27:21.018
The quality of what goes on in our schools is the best that it has ever been.

00:27:21.018 --> 00:27:26.798
unequivocally we believe that. Of course it could be better, of course pockets could improve,

00:27:27.358 --> 00:27:31.518
of course the debate about those not in education, employment and training is absolutely right

00:27:31.518 --> 00:27:36.818
because it's addressing a very real problem, but overall the quality of what's gone on in schools

00:27:36.818 --> 00:27:43.438
in terms of pedagogy, in terms of knowledge, in terms of skills, teaching is the best, could always

00:27:43.438 --> 00:27:50.438
get better. I hope it's not as good as it gets in the light of what could happen after the general

00:27:50.438 --> 00:27:51.858
election in terms of cuts, but

00:27:51.858 --> 00:28:09.435
it is the best and for that we rely on Ofsted Now we might actually have criticisms of Ofsted in terms of the high stakes consequences of Ofsted inspections but what else can you rely on in terms of the number of schools in terms of being reduced who have a notice to improve

00:28:10.355 --> 00:28:18.435
The big question then is, are the examinations that we've got appropriate for measuring that improvement?

00:28:18.435 --> 00:28:22.175
and I think we need to have a look at the big picture really

00:28:22.175 --> 00:28:25.515
because there are countries including Sweden

00:28:25.515 --> 00:28:28.915
that don't have a highly complex examination system

00:28:28.915 --> 00:28:30.655
not in any way shape or form

00:28:30.655 --> 00:28:35.455
and in fact they have an end of phase evaluation

00:28:35.455 --> 00:28:37.135
which is internal

00:28:37.135 --> 00:28:39.895
now you could say that's good or you could say that's bad

00:28:39.895 --> 00:28:41.695
but actually they're not hung up

00:28:41.695 --> 00:28:46.995
and I say Sweden because that is the favourite de nos jours

00:28:46.995 --> 00:28:50.615
for edutourism for all our politicians at the moment.

00:28:51.495 --> 00:28:53.055
So it is...

00:28:53.055 --> 00:28:55.335
The debate we're having about the nature of qualifications

00:28:55.335 --> 00:28:58.455
is not particularly an international one,

00:28:58.535 --> 00:29:00.755
and countries are peculiarly focused,

00:29:01.175 --> 00:29:01.615
particularly...

00:29:01.744 --> 00:29:05.764
in terms of upper secondary achievement on their own examinations and fixed.

00:29:06.544 --> 00:29:10.904
And actually, peculiarly, it is not an international debate about the nature of qualifications.

00:29:11.524 --> 00:29:15.584
It is very, very much focused on what goes on in individual countries.

00:29:16.744 --> 00:29:22.824
So to sort of move on, there is that question about are the qualifications appropriate?

00:29:22.984 --> 00:29:27.404
And I will say this, because I know other people will say it as well, but it's worth us saying it.

00:29:27.404 --> 00:29:33.724
I did think Tomlinson came to the nearest to actually asking about the nature and relevance and purpose of qualifications.

00:29:34.824 --> 00:29:37.064
It is, however, a big political hot potato.

00:29:37.064 --> 00:29:43.444
And I remember Barry McGore's study for QCA on standards over time,

00:29:43.804 --> 00:29:47.284
where he basically vindicated the argument that standards,

00:29:47.944 --> 00:29:50.784
either setting of standard performance against standards, hadn't gone down.

00:29:50.824 --> 00:29:54.944
But there are other bits and pieces of studies which have shown that there have been some question marks

00:29:54.944 --> 00:29:57.944
over individual subjects, such as science, for example,

00:29:57.944 --> 00:30:08.841
which I think has been sorted So there that bit there And then there the next bit which is the involvement of the teaching profession

00:30:09.921 --> 00:30:14.481
Now, we are the only teacher organisation that actually puts money where our mouths are

00:30:14.481 --> 00:30:16.421
in terms of the standing joint committees.

00:30:16.561 --> 00:30:20.521
Few of you, well, I suppose quite a lot of you actually know about the standing joint

00:30:20.521 --> 00:30:22.861
committees, but they do relate to the awarding bodies.

00:30:23.921 --> 00:30:27.521
And they've creaked along over the years, and some awarding bodies

00:30:27.521 --> 00:30:31.221
not OCR actually

00:30:31.221 --> 00:30:33.681
but I won't mention the other one

00:30:33.681 --> 00:30:36.041
have not been at various times

00:30:36.041 --> 00:30:37.901
particularly enthusiastic about hearing

00:30:37.901 --> 00:30:39.641
what teachers have to say about examination

00:30:39.641 --> 00:30:40.981
papers over the years

00:30:40.981 --> 00:30:43.541
although that has kind of steadied out

00:30:43.541 --> 00:30:45.321
and neither I have to say have been

00:30:45.321 --> 00:30:48.121
some organisations, teacher organisations

00:30:48.121 --> 00:30:49.741
that enthusiastic about actually

00:30:49.741 --> 00:30:51.301
capturing the professional views

00:30:51.301 --> 00:30:54.021
of their members about the quality

00:30:54.021 --> 00:30:55.461
of something so fundamental

00:30:55.461 --> 00:30:58.301
not only to young people's achievement,

00:30:58.301 --> 00:31:13.518
but also to what they actually teach in the classroom in secondary schools But I do think there is a major issue here and that is that the reality is that the profession is not in terms of looking at what is in the specifications

00:31:13.738 --> 00:31:18.118
what are in the examination papers over the years,

00:31:18.538 --> 00:31:22.818
actually the profession is not integrated as much as it could be

00:31:22.818 --> 00:31:25.518
in terms of a commentary system

00:31:25.518 --> 00:31:28.938
about the nature of specifications and examination papers themselves.

00:31:29.358 --> 00:31:31.598
The fact that we actually have to put in the Poultry 2000

00:31:31.598 --> 00:31:33.418
just to keep the cretin edifice going

00:31:33.418 --> 00:31:35.098
is a sign that that's not the case.

00:31:35.178 --> 00:31:36.438
So we do need to have a look at that.

00:31:38.258 --> 00:31:42.698
I think also there is something else that we do need to say,

00:31:42.898 --> 00:31:47.558
and that is that there is a very, very deep yearning for continuity.

00:31:48.698 --> 00:31:51.858
And this is where we have a little look at the manifestos.

00:31:52.578 --> 00:31:56.918
Now, there's a line in the Conservative Party's manifesto

00:31:56.918 --> 00:32:00.318
which says, examination should be more robust

00:32:00.318 --> 00:32:02.218
and we need to give universities and academics

00:32:02.218 --> 00:32:16.275
more say on their form and content And there a very big thing about an implication about the back and IGCSE their qualifications which they very enthusiastic The words more robust indicate the Conservative Party

00:32:16.275 --> 00:32:21.215
belief and concern by implication that somehow standards

00:32:21.215 --> 00:32:24.915
or the standard of the qualification has gone down.

00:32:26.415 --> 00:32:30.195
The Labour Party's manifesto talks about the review

00:32:30.195 --> 00:32:36.935
we all know about in 2013 in terms of the whole qualification system, including diplomas.

00:32:37.935 --> 00:32:42.555
And the Liberal Democrats come up with a very strong view about having the Tomlinson General

00:32:42.555 --> 00:32:49.475
Diploma and an Educational Standards Authority. Now, all of these, some of them have merit,

00:32:49.655 --> 00:32:56.995
and all of these have a political implication to them. But I have to say there is a deep yearning

00:32:56.995 --> 00:33:01.095
for continuity amongst the profession, amongst schools.

00:33:01.675 --> 00:33:04.955
And I have to say also, and I don't feel I have to say it, actually,

00:33:05.335 --> 00:33:07.715
we need to ensure that Ofqual works.

00:33:08.055 --> 00:33:08.915
We really do.

00:33:08.915 --> 00:33:10.475
The relationship between...

00:33:11.004 --> 00:33:14.224
Ofqual and the teacher organisations is a good one and a developing one.

00:33:14.304 --> 00:33:16.284
We don't have a problem with access to Ofqual.

00:33:16.484 --> 00:33:19.064
If anything we want anything, we'll talk to Ofqual.

00:33:20.004 --> 00:33:26.564
And there is a very deep yearning that the politicisation implied by the manifestos

00:33:27.144 --> 00:33:30.644
is something that we really, really do not need.

00:33:31.544 --> 00:33:35.244
There is a debate about the nature, as Roger said, of the standard set

00:33:35.244 --> 00:33:38.944
and the nature of the qualification in the best way it does seem to us.

00:33:38.944 --> 00:33:41.904
and there is a strong argument for looking at why, for instance,

00:33:42.004 --> 00:33:45.524
the Liberal Democrats actually propose the Educational Standards Authority,

00:33:45.744 --> 00:33:48.944
and I think there's an implication there that standards

00:33:49.644 --> 00:33:53.384
and what goes on in schools in terms of teaching and learning

00:33:53.384 --> 00:33:55.764
really do need to be more integrated, for example.

00:33:55.844 --> 00:33:58.884
There is an argument for looking at GCSEs, as Tom Linson did,

00:33:59.504 --> 00:34:04.624
but the idea that somehow we have to return to a tiered system

00:34:04.624 --> 00:34:25.382
where children are automatically sorted at 14 between vocation and academic routes is the last thing that I think the vast majority of colleagues in the profession do not want Thank you Thank you John And then switching back to science as it were Gordon Stobart is Emeritus

00:34:25.382 --> 00:34:31.382
Professor of Education at the University London Institute of Education and Professor of Education

00:34:31.382 --> 00:34:37.222
at the University of Bristol. His research has focused on assessment, national systems and policies,

00:34:37.222 --> 00:34:41.402
and classroom-based assessment, especially assessment for learning.

00:34:42.242 --> 00:34:45.522
He's been involved in several assessment-related projects

00:34:45.522 --> 00:34:50.042
funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the UK Department for Education and Skills.

00:34:50.742 --> 00:34:54.422
He's a founder member of the United Kingdom Assessment Reform Group

00:34:54.422 --> 00:35:00.102
and his most recent book is Testing Times, The Uses and Abuses of Assessment,

00:35:00.802 --> 00:35:04.042
which seeks to reclaim assessment as a constructive activity

00:35:04.042 --> 00:35:06.642
which can encourage deeper learning.

00:35:07.222 --> 00:35:07.522
Gordon.

00:35:07.522 --> 00:35:08.802
Thank you very much.

00:35:09.282 --> 00:35:20.819
This is a bit like one of those plenaries where you report back from small groups And if you the person who reporting back further down the line you cross off everything you had on your list

00:35:20.959 --> 00:35:22.879
And then when you've crossed off everything, you think,

00:35:23.299 --> 00:35:25.979
the people who've gone before have said everything I want to do,

00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:27.439
but I'm going to say it anyway.

00:35:27.859 --> 00:35:29.539
And that's where I find myself.

00:35:29.919 --> 00:35:32.739
I want to emulate the politicians here,

00:35:33.139 --> 00:35:36.419
and I want to say, let me be quite clear about this.

00:35:37.039 --> 00:35:39.159
The answer is yes.

00:35:39.999 --> 00:35:46.919
And no to the question, have standards really fallen?

00:35:47.479 --> 00:35:51.859
If you say yes, I can find you, I'm quite sure,

00:35:52.859 --> 00:35:58.219
a 1970-odd A-level paper that has harder questions

00:35:58.219 --> 00:36:00.959
than we'll find on an A-level paper today.

00:36:01.439 --> 00:36:02.419
Not difficult.

00:36:02.419 --> 00:36:05.939
I'm thinking particularly of 1975, a vintage year,

00:36:05.939 --> 00:36:26.536
When 44 of students and the students only represented about 15 of the school population when 44 failed maths Now that what I call rigor and that what I call standards And it was pointed out the reason so many failed

00:36:26.536 --> 00:36:30.816
is that they weren't mathematicians, they were people wanting to do geography, economics

00:36:30.816 --> 00:36:35.236
and other things who took a maths paper that was completely inappropriate and therefore

00:36:35.236 --> 00:36:42.196
failed. I can also find O-level science questions that were about real science, which is a

00:36:42.196 --> 00:36:47.096
about memorising formula and being able to use them in an exam.

00:36:47.616 --> 00:36:51.316
So, yes, if we look at those sorts of things,

00:36:51.496 --> 00:36:53.856
we can say things have got easier.

00:36:54.576 --> 00:36:56.716
The no, and I think it's a big no,

00:36:57.776 --> 00:37:01.256
is that if we're talking about the percentage

00:37:01.256 --> 00:37:04.976
of 16-year-olds and 18-year-olds,

00:37:05.436 --> 00:37:09.656
I would argue that the underlying knowledge

00:37:09.656 --> 00:37:15.716
of a large percentage of these has increased over the 20, 30 years.

00:37:17.116 --> 00:37:18.656
If we're talking...

00:37:19.385 --> 00:37:23.485
about the 14% going to higher education in 1975.

00:37:23.885 --> 00:37:27.805
We've now got something like, what, 45% going on to higher education.

00:37:28.765 --> 00:37:32.545
If we take the average student in 1975,

00:37:32.905 --> 00:37:35.785
somebody at the middle of the attainment distribution,

00:37:36.165 --> 00:37:38.165
they finished school at 15 or 16.

00:37:38.525 --> 00:37:41.145
Now they may be staying on to go to A level.

00:37:41.685 --> 00:37:45.225
This leaves me with a Zen-like thought for you

00:37:45.225 --> 00:37:48.545
that sometimes you have to lower standards

00:37:48.545 --> 00:37:49.985
in order to raise them.

00:37:50.825 --> 00:37:52.625
If your population's changing,

00:37:53.145 --> 00:37:55.425
there's an access agenda,

00:37:55.905 --> 00:37:58.085
you may have to do things like this

00:37:58.085 --> 00:38:01.025
to engage a larger proportion.

00:38:01.265 --> 00:38:02.625
So I think you can have both.

00:38:02.725 --> 00:38:05.385
You can have easier questions and standards raising.

00:38:05.765 --> 00:38:07.085
That's my Zen moment.

00:38:08.225 --> 00:38:11.025
My favourite analogy to try and capture

00:38:11.025 --> 00:38:14.745
what Tim and Roger were saying about this

00:38:14.745 --> 00:38:34.962
is climbing Mount Everest In 1953 two people we know them well got to the top of Mount Everest There was a day in 1996 when 39 people were on the top of Everest at the same time

00:38:35.482 --> 00:38:40.922
39 people on the same day. What's happened to Everest over time?

00:38:41.602 --> 00:38:42.962
This is my question.

00:38:42.962 --> 00:38:47.622
I've actually engaged in a debate

00:38:47.622 --> 00:38:49.802
because I asked, has Everest shrunk?

00:38:50.402 --> 00:38:53.662
And you'll be pleased to hear, actually, it's got bigger

00:38:53.662 --> 00:38:56.942
it's 26 foot higher than it was 30 years ago

00:38:56.942 --> 00:39:00.342
What's happened to mountaineering?

00:39:00.942 --> 00:39:03.022
If that many people can get to the top

00:39:03.022 --> 00:39:05.222
surely mountaineering standards have dropped

00:39:05.222 --> 00:39:08.582
What they've got now is things like maps

00:39:08.582 --> 00:39:12.702
training, equipment, guides

00:39:12.702 --> 00:39:15.162
all those sorts of things so clearly

00:39:15.162 --> 00:39:16.282
standards have fallen

00:39:16.282 --> 00:39:18.542
this analogy is run and run

00:39:18.542 --> 00:39:32.759
Mike Creswell did an analysis of the proportion per year who successfully got to the top This is all about rigour And it was really sloppy in about 1995 that something like 0 were getting to the top

00:39:33.019 --> 00:39:38.279
In the 70s, when there was rigour, they kept falling off, just not getting there.

00:39:39.319 --> 00:39:47.099
So what this risks actually is the idea of a pointless golden age debate about standards.

00:39:47.099 --> 00:39:50.599
when were the standard

00:39:50.599 --> 00:39:52.859
when was the golden age of education

00:39:52.859 --> 00:39:56.139
and just a couple of quotes to really

00:39:56.139 --> 00:39:58.719
what tends to happen is

00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:02.439
whatever age is announced as the golden age

00:40:02.439 --> 00:40:05.939
somebody at that point will be saying it was much better 30 years ago

00:40:05.939 --> 00:40:07.719
much harder when I was in school

00:40:07.719 --> 00:40:09.839
so there is no fixed point here

00:40:09.839 --> 00:40:13.419
but a couple of quotes here

00:40:13.419 --> 00:40:15.959
I'm going to read

00:40:15.959 --> 00:40:37.336
This may seem tedious but I going to read a complete examiner report from 1924 in pure and applied maths The only point that calls for a report is the general weakness of a large proportion of the candidates That it They don mince their words up at the

00:40:37.336 --> 00:40:44.936
JMB. Things hadn't got much better by 1932. A considerable percentage of the candidates

00:40:44.936 --> 00:40:50.936
were quite unfitted to take the exam and had no possible chance of passing. Another informative

00:40:50.936 --> 00:40:57.176
bit of feedback. And one final one here. It's been said, for instance, that accuracy in the

00:40:57.176 --> 00:41:01.676
manipulation of figures does not reach the standard which was reached 20 years ago. Some

00:41:01.676 --> 00:41:07.136
employers express surprise and concern at the inability of young persons to perform simple

00:41:07.136 --> 00:41:18.236
numerical operations involved in business. 1876. Okay, so standards up, down. I think my point for

00:41:18.236 --> 00:41:22.476
today is that the standards debate, the standards over time

00:41:22.476 --> 00:41:28.116
debate goes nowhere and we ought to drop it as soon as possible.

00:41:28.206 --> 00:41:33.766
do is lead into the proper debate, it seems to me, which is about the fitness for purpose

00:41:33.766 --> 00:41:41.646
of our current and future qualifications. The dilemma with this is we then hit the notion

00:41:41.646 --> 00:41:47.506
of multiple purposes, when you've got qualifications that are being used for several, in fact,

00:41:47.646 --> 00:41:55.166
dozens. Paul Newton is here, who is the purpose spotter, and has worked up 18-14 for the national

00:41:55.166 --> 00:42:01.166
curriculum test. If we're talking A-level, talking GCSE, we've got accountability, we've got driving

00:42:01.166 --> 00:42:06.466
up standards in schools, and we've got individual selection. That's a problem in itself. When we're

00:42:06.466 --> 00:42:13.446
trying to operate with multiple purposes, an exam can't do everything well. Alisa Pollitt uses the

00:42:13.446 --> 00:42:20.186
nice analogy of the Swiss Army pen knife. It's a great one. It does everything, but it does nothing

00:42:20.186 --> 00:42:36.143
well If you ever seen the saw blade on a Swiss Army penknife you imagine yourself with a log on your leg and oh dear oh good I got my Swiss Army pen knife You be found dead from exhaustion not from an injured leg

00:42:37.223 --> 00:42:41.243
So the notion that we can take a qualification and use it for so many purposes,

00:42:41.463 --> 00:42:43.943
are national standards rising and falling?

00:42:45.103 --> 00:42:47.263
Are we driving up standards in schools?

00:42:47.563 --> 00:42:51.303
Again, we've got to get back to what is the principal purpose of this?

00:42:51.303 --> 00:42:57.423
And I think the suggestion today is that we're looking very much at the selective purpose of something like A-level.

00:42:58.263 --> 00:43:00.703
Is it fit for purpose for selection?

00:43:01.143 --> 00:43:07.603
And I think there is a crisis here in the sense that Tim's kind of grade inflation ratcheting up and things,

00:43:07.683 --> 00:43:16.863
where we've got more students with three A's so that selectors can't discriminate in terms of grades

00:43:16.863 --> 00:43:22.183
because you've more than enough have got the required or the very top grades.

00:43:22.463 --> 00:43:39.120
So we need to do something about that because the exam in that sense is not fit for purpose if it can do that selective work It will be interesting to see whether the A introducing the A helps with this or other things happen as a consequence of this

00:43:39.660 --> 00:43:42.380
I also note, and this could cost me my lunch,

00:43:42.820 --> 00:43:47.500
that the pre-U from Cambridge feels to me like back to the future.

00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:51.940
Are we not back to 10% taking a much more difficult exam than things,

00:43:52.120 --> 00:43:54.920
which is where A-level started out, but I'll leave that there.

00:43:54.920 --> 00:44:02.520
I think where the debate should be going is to ask questions about are we relying too much,

00:44:02.540 --> 00:44:07.780
and this is Roger's point, on grades that are not necessarily that robust,

00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:10.320
or we can't put our complete confidence in them.

00:44:10.700 --> 00:44:16.200
Is this, as the prime determinant of whether somebody gets to university,

00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:17.740
is this the right way round?

00:44:17.740 --> 00:44:24.300
Or should we be having a bigger debate about what, when you apply for a university,

00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:26.880
I know UCAS forms and things like that

00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:28.760
but what else should be in the mix

00:44:28.760 --> 00:44:40.657
for selection rather than simply relying on exams that I don think can bear the weight of some of the purposes that are being put on them Thank you Thank you Gordon

00:44:43.657 --> 00:44:52.297
Our final speaker is Anastasia Duval, who is the Deputy Director of the think tank Civitas and Director of its Family and Education section.

00:44:52.657 --> 00:44:59.477
Her work centres on analysing social and economic trends and evaluating family and education policy.

00:44:59.857 --> 00:45:03.697
as well as formulating and directing Civitas' overall research agenda.

00:45:04.837 --> 00:45:09.837
Anastasia is a qualified primary school teacher, specifically trained for inner-city teaching.

00:45:10.517 --> 00:45:14.437
A regular contributor to broadcast and print media, her publications include

00:45:14.437 --> 00:45:22.477
Inspection, Inspection, Inspection, Second Thoughts on the Family, and Inspecting the Inspectorate.

00:45:23.257 --> 00:45:27.457
She is the chair of Parent Line Plus, a board member of Women's Parliamentary Radio,

00:45:27.457 --> 00:45:29.277
and a panellist for The Observer.

00:45:29.857 --> 00:45:30.857
Anastasia.

00:45:30.857 --> 00:45:31.857
Thank you.

00:45:31.857 --> 00:45:36.857
Well, as a few people have said, I think that Cambridge Assessment is having this debate

00:45:36.857 --> 00:45:36.937
at all.

00:45:37.026 --> 00:45:39.626
is not just an indictment of its bravery,

00:45:40.046 --> 00:45:43.346
but also an indictment of the fact that this has become a debate

00:45:43.346 --> 00:45:45.966
which is not just about haranguing critics,

00:45:46.146 --> 00:45:48.686
it's not just about looking to the golden path,

00:45:48.726 --> 00:45:51.746
it's a debate that needs to be had on a wider scale.

00:45:52.486 --> 00:45:55.666
But what I'm going to do is actually not look at exam standards.

00:45:55.806 --> 00:45:58.126
I don't think that exams are actually the problem at the moment,

00:45:58.186 --> 00:45:58.966
if there is a problem,

00:45:59.606 --> 00:46:00.846
but the way that exams,

00:46:01.166 --> 00:46:03.666
and particularly the pursuit of high grades in exams,

00:46:04.246 --> 00:46:05.966
is affecting standards of learning.

00:46:05.966 --> 00:46:29.326
And that's what I think really is the core issue. The fact that a pursuit of A grades at A level, of reaching the desired standard in the key stage 2 stats, of reaching a higher number of A's at GCSE, the impact that that's having by the impact from the centre in terms of government input on the distortions in school.

00:46:29.326 --> 00:46:44.283
So what I want to do is do a bit of a tour through some of the work that we done at Civitas looking at the different ways in which the pursuit of higher grades and effectively government intervention have led to distortions within learning

00:46:44.883 --> 00:46:47.303
So to start at primary school, I mean, at the moment

00:46:47.303 --> 00:46:50.183
and for quite a number of months now, even years,

00:46:50.403 --> 00:46:53.463
we've been talking about the problems with the key stage 2 SATs.

00:46:54.063 --> 00:46:57.643
The answer now seems to be to scrap the key stage 2 SATs,

00:46:57.643 --> 00:47:00.563
but actually I wonder whether that would solve the problem

00:47:00.563 --> 00:47:03.483
because ultimately the problem is about a huge pressure

00:47:03.483 --> 00:47:08.743
from the centre again for teachers to come up with the necessary results.

00:47:09.143 --> 00:47:11.803
Getting rid of the SATs, getting rid of testing,

00:47:11.943 --> 00:47:13.843
I'm not sure would actually get rid of the problem

00:47:13.843 --> 00:47:17.083
because there still would be pressure for schools to be able to demonstrate

00:47:17.083 --> 00:47:19.803
that the necessary level was being achieved.

00:47:20.863 --> 00:47:24.803
We did, in order to try and understand a bit about how teachers felt

00:47:24.803 --> 00:47:28.183
when it came to standards in the SATs, some research of Year 7 teachers.

00:47:28.183 --> 00:47:32.983
So looking at the teachers who get Key Stage 2 pupils into their classes

00:47:32.983 --> 00:47:36.403
and asking them whether they felt that actually the results

00:47:36.403 --> 00:47:51.680
that the primary leavers were coming in with were reliable 90 of Year 7 teachers in our survey felt that they were not reliable and nearly 80 felt that up to a third of their pupils in Year 7

00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:54.960
were actually lower than their Key Stage 2 results.

00:47:56.300 --> 00:47:58.760
Whether that matters or not is really not the issue.

00:47:58.860 --> 00:48:02.540
I mean, does it matter that it looks like pupils are doing better than they are?

00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:03.460
No, not really.

00:48:03.460 --> 00:48:09.280
is it all right if government says that education policy is having a better impact than perhaps it is?

00:48:09.720 --> 00:48:11.100
No, it doesn't particularly matter.

00:48:11.460 --> 00:48:14.380
What matters is the behind-the-scenes impact,

00:48:14.600 --> 00:48:19.340
and this is the recurring theme throughout the education system.

00:48:19.340 --> 00:48:24.060
The problem at the moment with SATs, and if there is a distortion in terms of performance,

00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:25.840
is what's happening to the curriculum.

00:48:26.460 --> 00:48:30.360
The problem is ultimately that the curriculum is being shrunk in many cases

00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:35.540
in order that what's that snapshot of learning is actually becoming a sum of learning

00:48:35.540 --> 00:48:38.040
so that the necessary levels can be achieved.

00:48:39.620 --> 00:48:51.318
Then moving into GCSE that another area where we looked at Here it an interesting case because it obviously a benign intention which in many ways has become part of this trying to chase higher grades

00:48:51.318 --> 00:48:58.498
and trying in effect to prove that education policy is having the desired effect, but through grades.

00:48:59.458 --> 00:49:03.758
The equivalent system has been talked about a lot in the debate around standards.

00:49:03.758 --> 00:49:24.358
And whilst it seemed like a very good idea and continues to be a good idea to broaden the curriculum in terms of opportunities, one of the big problems is the way that actually this broadening of the curriculum has led to a way in which the system can push weaker pupils into achieving higher grades, but not by maximizing learning.

00:49:24.358 --> 00:49:28.638
One of the pieces of research that we did recently, fairly recently, was looking at

00:49:28.638 --> 00:49:36.638
academies. Academies are held up as the beacons of success in terms of closing the achievement

00:49:36.638 --> 00:49:42.518
gap, improving life chances, particularly in inner city areas, and really making sure

00:49:42.518 --> 00:49:45.758
that learning is maximized. What we want to do is that learning is maximized. What we

00:49:45.847 --> 00:49:51.427
to do was to find out what academies who are achieving a much higher rate of high performance

00:49:51.427 --> 00:49:56.567
at GCSE, what subjects they were doing. One of the anomalies seemed to be that academies

00:49:56.567 --> 00:50:01.027
are at the forefront of the political agenda, yet there seemed to be very little information

00:50:01.027 --> 00:50:05.967
about how this success was actually being achieved. The results were very revealing.

00:50:06.687 --> 00:50:13.567
The majority of the principals of academies who we interviewed thought that they didn't

00:50:13.567 --> 00:50:18.507
want to release their results. Some of the reasons that they gave for not wanting to

00:50:18.507 --> 00:50:23.367
release their results were because they didn't want to expose the fact that they were focusing

00:50:23.367 --> 00:50:27.947
on some subjects and not other subjects. When they were asked whether they thought that

00:50:27.947 --> 00:50:32.327
academies should have to publish a breakdown of their results as other maintained schools

00:50:32.327 --> 00:50:37.327
have to, only 55% thought that that should be the case. And again, a lot of the arguments

00:50:37.327 --> 00:50:42.247
against publishing their results, so a breakdown of what was actually being achieved at GCSE,

00:50:42.247 --> 00:50:55.824
was because they didn want to show what subjects were actually being used to attain higher grades That in itself isn necessarily significant What was significant was when we did look at the results from those academies which

00:50:55.824 --> 00:50:56.724
did give them to us.

00:50:57.184 --> 00:51:04.004
There were a lot of ICT, a lot of BTEC, IT qualifications, exactly the qualifications

00:51:04.004 --> 00:51:10.164
which Ofsted has said are not rigorous enough, are not stimulating enough, and are not wide

00:51:10.164 --> 00:51:12.384
enough in terms of their learning remit.

00:51:12.384 --> 00:51:18.504
In many cases there were very low entries, in some cases no entries at all in history and geography.

00:51:18.984 --> 00:51:22.124
Single sciences were very rare in the results that we saw.

00:51:22.544 --> 00:51:25.844
And the important thing to remember was these were the results that we were actually given.

00:51:26.244 --> 00:51:32.744
So we don't know what the results of those academies when broken down were for those principals who didn't show us their results.

00:51:34.344 --> 00:51:41.784
Why that matters particularly is because we know that academies are serving the least affluent areas.

00:51:41.784 --> 00:51:43.504
if this then means

00:51:43.504 --> 00:51:55.981
that in the pursuit of higher grades there actually a lessening of learning then that the opposite of widening opportunity and of broadening life chances It might look good on paper

00:51:56.161 --> 00:51:59.681
but it doesn't look good for opportunities.

00:52:00.321 --> 00:52:03.221
And it has been said that the important thing about equivalence

00:52:03.221 --> 00:52:05.561
is that it's great for the school,

00:52:05.921 --> 00:52:07.281
although in many cases it isn't,

00:52:07.341 --> 00:52:09.461
because actually the teachers find it very unsatisfactory,

00:52:09.861 --> 00:52:13.021
but ultimately the student doesn't walk away with an equivalent,

00:52:13.021 --> 00:52:15.981
they walk away with what they actually have,

00:52:16.221 --> 00:52:17.661
the breakdown of their results

00:52:17.661 --> 00:52:20.841
and perhaps a narrowed remit in terms of learning.

00:52:22.301 --> 00:52:26.261
Finally, we recently, again last year, looked at A-levels.

00:52:26.801 --> 00:52:29.741
A-levels seem to be at the centre of the debate around standards,

00:52:29.741 --> 00:52:31.841
which is interesting considering that actually

00:52:31.841 --> 00:52:34.421
perhaps we should be thinking about standards in schooling

00:52:34.421 --> 00:52:37.741
where everybody is participating rather than A-level.

00:52:38.541 --> 00:52:41.621
What we were trying to understand was, again, talking to teachers,

00:52:41.621 --> 00:52:45.421
whether they felt that the A-level was comparable now to the past

00:52:45.421 --> 00:52:58.498
and whether this idea of continuity in terms of comparison was valid One thing was very clear it isn And it not actually that interesting to compare standards in that sense because we talking about a fundamentally different system

00:52:58.498 --> 00:53:01.498
We're talking about a modular compared to a linear A-level.

00:53:01.498 --> 00:53:04.498
I think it's a very valid point, and a lot of teachers made this,

00:53:04.498 --> 00:53:07.498
in saying that we can't compare standards

00:53:07.498 --> 00:53:10.498
because actually we're talking about a completely different qualification.

00:53:10.498 --> 00:53:14.498
Very valid, but they're not valid for government to say

00:53:14.498 --> 00:53:17.578
have dramatically improved, if it is indeed incomparable.

00:53:17.958 --> 00:53:19.298
That was one important point.

00:53:19.938 --> 00:53:24.398
But the most important point was the impact of the modular A-level

00:53:24.398 --> 00:53:25.738
in terms of re-sitting.

00:53:25.858 --> 00:53:29.078
That was the thing that came up the most in terms of why the A-level,

00:53:29.278 --> 00:53:31.638
the modular A-level, was considered to be more accessible.

00:53:32.418 --> 00:53:34.138
A lot of the teachers, the majority, in fact,

00:53:34.778 --> 00:53:37.178
supported this idea of a more accessible A-level.

00:53:37.358 --> 00:53:38.898
Why? Because they thought it was very important

00:53:38.898 --> 00:53:42.098
that more kids had opportunity to go into higher education.

00:53:42.098 --> 00:53:47.798
What a lot of them, however, felt was a problem was that it was resetting ad nauseam.

00:53:47.798 --> 00:53:52.998
It was resetting the same learning over and over again rather than being able to broaden

00:53:52.998 --> 00:53:54.578
what they were learning.

00:53:54.667 --> 00:53:58.727
Maybe it meant higher grades, but perhaps it meant an impoverished learning experience.

00:53:59.647 --> 00:54:06.827
It's also very important because some of them felt that although the idea was that resitting meant more opportunity perhaps to go to university,

00:54:07.327 --> 00:54:13.487
universities were then turning around and saying, actually, we don't think that these results are an indicator that suffice.

00:54:14.007 --> 00:54:15.647
Therefore, we're going to do our own tests.

00:54:15.987 --> 00:54:20.427
So in other words, the ultimate slander, I mean, we talk a lot, or the government talks a lot,

00:54:20.427 --> 00:54:24.387
and I think rightly in some ways about the insult to students every year

00:54:24.387 --> 00:54:26.027
when there's this debate about standards.

00:54:26.787 --> 00:54:30.587
But unfortunately, there is no greater insult than the universities turning around

00:54:30.587 --> 00:54:33.427
legitimately because they have to and saying,

00:54:33.587 --> 00:54:37.827
well, we can't actually use your results because they're not a terribly satisfactory indicator.

00:54:38.507 --> 00:54:43.747
It was also very significant that 69% of those A-level teachers who we interviewed

00:54:43.747 --> 00:54:49.387
said that they thought that more than 50% of their cohort for that year

00:54:49.387 --> 00:55:06.024
had improved their overall grade in their subject at A level by at least one grade So in other words it having a very dramatic effect I think that the clearest thing when it comes to A is that we need to be honest about the fact that we aren talking about like with like Does that matter No not necessarily

00:55:06.524 --> 00:55:11.604
It could actually be much better, and this idea of more accessibility in A-level is very important,

00:55:12.004 --> 00:55:16.624
but it does mean that it's not legitimate to say that things have dramatically improved.

00:55:17.184 --> 00:55:21.604
And then finally, the work that I'm looking at at the moment is higher education. I just

00:55:21.604 --> 00:55:28.244
wanted to bring that in because this idea of perhaps the less intrinsic learning experience

00:55:28.244 --> 00:55:34.264
falling to the by the wayside and the emphasis being on the qualification or the grade itself

00:55:34.264 --> 00:55:40.044
is very significant in higher education. There is clearly an agenda, an important agenda to get more

00:55:40.044 --> 00:55:45.804
people participating in higher education but it has been described as box piling to an extent

00:55:45.804 --> 00:55:50.324
and that is that we're talking not about the intrinsic value of the learning experience,

00:55:50.324 --> 00:56:07.082
the intrinsic value of the degree that you doing but the fact that you have got this qualification It doesn matter what it in it doesn matter whether you find it stimulating it doesn matter whether the quality is good but in other words it doesn matter what in the box but it matters that we stocking and stacking those boxes up

00:56:07.162 --> 00:56:08.202
And that is problematic.

00:56:08.802 --> 00:56:11.062
And really, I think that comes to the conclusion

00:56:11.062 --> 00:56:12.462
of what the situation,

00:56:14.042 --> 00:56:17.122
in terms of a focus on grades

00:56:17.122 --> 00:56:18.862
rather than the learning experience,

00:56:19.282 --> 00:56:23.482
is having in terms of the wider education situation.

00:56:23.482 --> 00:56:32.242
I think the greatest thing that we need to do is sever national accountability on a policy level from individual student performance.

00:56:32.862 --> 00:56:38.482
The second thing we need to do is we need to make sure that we're looking at standards from a wider perspective,

00:56:39.122 --> 00:56:47.382
and it isn't just about exam results, and that means particularly Ofsted looking at not just data in offices outside of schools,

00:56:47.562 --> 00:56:51.082
but actually the greater holistic experience of school.

00:56:51.082 --> 00:56:56.282
but most importantly we need to make sure that exams, tests at all levels in education

00:56:56.282 --> 00:57:08.399
are not testing the sum of learning but genuinely the snapshot of learning and that does mean much less interference from the government It means making sure that in primary school teachers are not told everything

00:57:08.539 --> 00:57:13.199
They don't want to know what's in the SATS test but they're being told because it helps to boost performance.

00:57:13.659 --> 00:57:18.319
And it means making sure that actually A-levels and GCSEs are about stimulating students

00:57:18.939 --> 00:57:24.079
and having a wider learning experience, not simply about exam preparation.

00:57:24.079 --> 00:57:25.219
Thank you.

00:57:26.319 --> 00:57:27.839
Thank you, Anastasia.

00:57:29.339 --> 00:57:35.499
Right, ladies and gentlemen, I think we can genuinely say we have covered practically everything,

00:57:35.919 --> 00:57:41.639
the entire waterfront of what we could debate after coffee.

00:57:42.259 --> 00:57:46.219
Now, we have five minutes for points of clarification.

00:57:48.519 --> 00:57:51.539
The debating will take place after coffee.

00:57:52.119 --> 00:57:56.159
The discussion will take place then, the point scoring, if that's how you feel you want to play it.

00:57:56.319 --> 00:58:02.799
will take place then. But if anybody has some points of clarification they want to ask anybody up on the platform

00:58:03.488 --> 00:58:07.548
they didn't quite understand precisely what was being said.

00:58:07.708 --> 00:58:09.548
Now is the time to do it.

00:58:10.888 --> 00:58:11.168
Yes.

00:58:15.388 --> 00:58:16.528
The same rules apply.

00:58:16.628 --> 00:58:17.388
Could you stand up?

00:58:17.508 --> 00:58:20.428
Could you give your name and institution?

00:58:20.868 --> 00:58:22.528
Yes, I'm Tina Isaacs.

00:58:22.608 --> 00:58:24.028
I'm at the Institute of Education.

00:58:24.488 --> 00:58:27.028
I have a question of clarification for Tim, actually.

00:58:27.708 --> 00:58:32.188
At the very beginning, you talked about two or three times,

00:58:32.188 --> 00:58:37.428
I noted it down, the unnecessary change to qualifications.

00:58:38.308 --> 00:58:41.968
And what I wondered was if you could give us a concrete example,

00:58:42.468 --> 00:58:46.868
because if you think about it, the new A-levels that were introduced in 2008

00:58:46.868 --> 00:58:52.428
were followed on from qualifications that were introduced in 2000.

00:58:52.988 --> 00:58:58.088
The new GCSEs that were introduced in 2009 followed on from qualifications

00:58:58.088 --> 00:59:00.128
that were introduced in 1999.

00:59:00.128 --> 00:59:17.845
So what I wondering is how you define unnecessary One could look to particular instances of change which we highlighted before in terms of some of our commentaries

00:59:18.485 --> 00:59:27.785
So, for example, we know in GCSE mathematics that calculators have been in, out, in, out a number of times.

00:59:27.785 --> 00:59:31.505
and each of those changes then gives rise to problems

00:59:31.505 --> 00:59:33.305
in terms of maintenance of standards

00:59:33.305 --> 00:59:36.345
in terms of what's actually going on within the qualification

00:59:36.345 --> 00:59:39.225
in terms of attainment and the inferences that one can make from it

00:59:39.225 --> 00:59:41.785
I would argue strongly that

00:59:41.785 --> 00:59:44.945
and others would disagree

00:59:44.945 --> 00:59:48.265
but the changes should be led by

00:59:48.265 --> 00:59:51.745
the changes which emerge from the subject community

00:59:51.745 --> 00:59:54.205
or from the structure of knowledge within a discipline itself

00:59:54.205 --> 00:59:59.205
Now, that would suggest that we need to change subjects

00:59:59.205 --> 01:00:14.922
on a timeframe which is determined by the subject itself as opposed to affecting total system change So for example moving the system wholesale from linear to modular Now others would argue that it easier to maintain standards

01:00:14.922 --> 01:00:20.902
when you change everything at once. And I think that's a critical point for this debate.

01:00:21.702 --> 01:00:27.122
In terms of change, what should be the main drivers? And I would argue strongly that...

01:00:27.122 --> 01:00:31.182
You're now getting into the discussion.

01:00:31.582 --> 01:00:33.022
So if we could leave that.

01:00:33.382 --> 01:00:34.462
I think you've answered the point.

01:00:34.722 --> 01:00:36.522
It's just for questions.

01:00:36.522 --> 01:00:36.942
Yes.

01:00:40.342 --> 01:00:41.042
Thank you.

01:00:41.242 --> 01:00:43.382
Greg Brooks, Emeritus, University of Sheffield.

01:00:43.642 --> 01:00:45.082
I also have a question for Tim.

01:00:45.862 --> 01:00:48.302
Tim, in the slide you had headed,

01:00:48.722 --> 01:00:50.642
where to from here, third bullet,

01:00:50.762 --> 01:00:52.842
was about who owns the exams.

01:00:53.642 --> 01:00:54.822
It did not mention government.

01:00:55.442 --> 01:00:55.942
Why not?

01:00:57.122 --> 01:01:21.019
Well I think one of some of the defining features of the system two decades ago was that the major transactions were between schools awarding bodies higher education and employment And there were frequent instances of where schools or groups of schools or LEAs got together to produce interesting and invigorated curricula which met with precision the needs of young

01:01:21.019 --> 01:01:22.019
people.

01:01:22.019 --> 01:01:25.459
And those clusters of schools or schools would then turn to an awarding body to say,

01:01:25.459 --> 01:01:27.759
can you help us with assessing this?

01:01:27.759 --> 01:01:33.239
And really I consider that to be the right sort of relationship in respect of the determination

01:01:33.239 --> 01:01:34.959
of the content in the form of qualifications.

01:01:35.639 --> 01:01:37.059
It's those kind of transactions

01:01:37.059 --> 01:01:39.299
which should drive and transform the system.

01:01:42.059 --> 01:01:43.419
Okay, on that note,

01:01:43.559 --> 01:01:45.239
I'm going to call for coffee,

01:01:45.659 --> 01:01:46.559
which I think will be

01:01:46.559 --> 01:01:49.279
valued by everybody, and I

01:01:49.279 --> 01:01:50.959
will see you all back here in

01:01:50.959 --> 01:01:52.939
20 minutes when the debate will

01:01:52.939 --> 01:01:54.819
kick off properly.

01:01:55.039 --> 01:01:57.279
If you have any questions, please feed them in

01:01:57.279 --> 01:01:59.119
to the team or to myself

01:01:59.119 --> 01:02:01.339
or comments or anything like

01:02:01.339 --> 01:02:03.419
that and I can take them from the chair

01:02:03.419 --> 01:02:04.819
here. Thank you very much ladies.