Blogs

Putting the Glue Back in the System: What approaches can practitioners adopt?

by Loic Menzies, 06 September 2022
Putting the glue back in the system
A lack of ‘system thinking’ has stymied the sector’s ability to gather, share and act on information about vulnerable young people’s needs. “Putting the Glue Back in the System” will set out some of the approaches education practitioners are attempting within the current system. Part 1 of a 3-part series that forms part of our #MappingTheWay discussion series with Loic Menzies.

Assessment Horizons - with Sarah Corcoran from ACCA

by Guest Blogger, 07 July 2022
assessment_horizons
How did different organisations offering assessments respond to the pandemic? and what could that tell us about the future of assessment delivery? Cambridge Assessment Network spoke with Sarah Corcoran, Director of e-Assessment Transformation at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) about moving to Computer-Based Assessment, and how learning and assessment in her industry is changing in relation to technology drivers.

Exploring equity in education and beyond

by Guest Blogger, 24 March 2022
Children stood in overlapping circles
At an expert roundtable in earlier this year we brought together key voices from the education sector to discuss the barriers to equity in education, and the information policy makers might need to improve it. Here, attendees Hardip Begol and Sammy Wright reflect on the discussion and share their thoughts on these perennial yet but crucial questions for any education system that aspires to equity.

What’s the opportunity? Why policy makers need to understand the options that education unlocks

by Loic Menzies, 22 March 2022
Woman climbing a ladder to get through a door
This is the third in our four-part blog series setting out the key considerations to come from our latest #MappingTheWay event. This one explores why the supply of opportunities beyond the classroom is important, and how we can shape education to unlock them.

Keeping track of changes to the education and exam system in England

by Nicky Rushton, 15 March 2022
Students taking notes in class

There are so many changes to education that it can be difficult to keep track of them all or remember what they were about. In this blog, Nicky Rushton talks about the Register of Change and the latest additions to it covering the effects of COVΙD-19 on schooling, general qualifications and vocational and technical qualifications.

Brought to you in Technicolour: Why policy makers need to understand young people’s lives

by Loic Menzies, 14 March 2022
Young people seen in technicolour
This is the second in a four-part blog series that will set out the key considerations to come from the event. Part one focused on the need to look at young people across the distribution. This one discusses how we can build up a fuller, picture of young people’s lives to inform a more nuanced approach to improving outcomes.

What do you mean ‘personalised learning’?

by Guest Blogger, 10 March 2022
Birds eye view of person walking in a maze
As part of our SHAPE Education initiative, Cambridge University Press & Assessment is hosting monthly ‘SHAPE Live’ debates with experts on the future of education. On Tuesday, 1 March we discussed how, as educators and an education system, we can personalise learning. Brendan Wightman, secondary digital publishing lead (English) at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, reflects on the recent event.

Beware the Threshold: Looking beyond averages

by Loic Menzies, 09 March 2022
Representation of a graph with people
This is the first in a four-part blog series setting out the key considerations to come from an expert roundtable and webinar on the topic of equity in education. Part one looks at the tendency of policy makers to focus on thresholds and averages, and subsequent inability to look at young people across the distribution.

Does giving advance notice disadvantage lower-attaining students?

by Tom Bramley, 07 February 2022
Student taking exam
All examinations contain a mix of questions that vary in how they discriminate between student ability. Providing advance information (an intervention that is intended to make certain questions on an examination easier) will affect the difficulty of questions in different ways. Tom Bramley, Director of the Research Division, asks whether providing advance information could benefit some students more than others.

What is competence? A shared interpretation of competence to support teaching, learning and assessment

by Sylvia Vitello & Jackie Greatorex, 26 January 2022
Woodwork student being observed by a teacher while working at a machine, wearing protective goggles and ear defenders
A new research report published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment explores what we mean by competence. Two of three authors, Sylvia Vitello and Jackie Greatorex, explain the background to the report, what’s in it, and why clarity about what competence means is so important.

Diary insights into teaching during lockdown

by Martin Johnson, 24 December 2021
Teacher holding a diary dated 2021
We recently reported on our research that catalogued in detail the experiences of 15 teachers based in England from diaries they were asked to keep during the first half of 2021. This blog describes how the research team set about collecting the data and sets out some of the insights the teachers provided.

Key bloggers

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Director of Assessment and Research

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