After more than five years of ongoing development in Scottish secondary schools, the Curriculum for Excellence has reached its first round of 'gold standard' Higher examinations. Though the contents of many courses have been significantly revised, and a sizeable portion of the overall marks may come from a piece of coursework conducted in school, the essence of the exam system remains largely the same. For most candidates, almost everything rests on a set of examinations, each lasting not much more than a couple of hours that bear little relation to any 'real life' tasks.
To a number of educators, the lack of a radical change in the approach to assessment at the upper levels of CfE represents a missed opportunity. To many more the new assessment arrangements for the new qualifications, and the instruments of assessment themselves, with their unnecessarily complicated marking and recording, are a backwards step where a more flexible and progressive system could have been adopted.
What shape such a system might take would no doubt result in a great deal of debate, with the various interests of learners, employers, parents, the higher and further education sectors, all needing to be addressed.
I don't flatter myself that the following proposals are ideal, but to my mind they offer some improvements over the current arrangements.
1. All SQA qualifications to have a 'certificate' level of attainment based solely on unit assessments completed in school.
This extends the approach used for National 4 courses upward, but would only work with significant revision to the process of assessing individual units within subjects. The assessments would be attempted 'on demand' by candidates, when they feel they are ready to do so, ideally using secure online 'eAssessment' approaches, which would be provided by the SQA, overseen by centres and accessed by candidates via their Glow login. Such a system could relatively easily be set up to match individual questions against key areas and skills, if this level of detail had to be retained.
If this system is rigorous and the assessment is fit for purpose, this could raise the perception of worth of National 4, whilst allowing candidates following N5, Higher, and Advanced Higher courses to provide evidence of having completed these courses, if not necessarily having mastered them. Such a level of attainment may be sufficient for some employers, apprenticeships , FE and HE instutions (and may be useful to encourage S6 pupils not to 'go off the boil' when unconditional offers are received).
2. All qualifications to have an elective terminal summative assessment - 'final exam' - which awards candidates grades A - D, based on their performance.
These graded examinations would likely be undertaken by the bulk of candidates (assuming there is no change to the traditional desire for candidates to gain graded qualifications). Such an approach at National 4 would give these courses greater perceived worth, with candidates, parents, employers and colleges.
Graded certicates would continue to serve their current purpose, providing evidence of a level of attainment in order for candidates to progress to the next stage of their learning, whether that be from N5 to Higher, or university entrance.
3. Separate certification of Added Value Units and Assignments within curricular areas.
Candidates at all levels are expected to complete these tasks in many of their subjects. They may repeat very similar tasks a number of times, especially when they study two subjects in the same curricular area - e.g. two social subjects or sciences. Such repetition of these tasks brings little benefit to the candidates involved, increases their workload, and that of their teachers. Reducing the number of these tasks could free up time to allow for a less rapid pace to be adopted in the delivery of the courses and to help candidates consolidate their knowledge.
Clearly these proposals would require further significant changes to an education system that has already gone through unprecedented change in the last decade. It is clear, however, that the new system is far from ideal and that a different approach is needed.
I have no doubt that there are significant flaws in my proposals, and I would be delighted if readers would take the time to advise me of any shortcomings, or improvements they can see.
Please feel free to add your thoughts via the comments below.
Drew,
Some good thinking there.
Yes definitely need to rationalise the assessment burden for pupils. My son starts S4 soon and I can feel the pain already.
Yes definitely e-assessment is the way ahead for a lot of Unit Assessment just like the Driving Theory Test in fact. BBC Bitesize and SCHOLAR are almost there already.
Also some sort of spreadsheet grid that credits skills across subject areas when achieved and avoids repetition.
Skills assessment which CFE is meant to promote still needs to be school based I think. Assessment of surgeons purely by a written exam ended many years ago I believe 🙂
Yes, makes sense, especially separate certification of AV and Assignments. Also like the idea of eAssessment provided by SQA, but might be problem given IT situation in most schools and obviously can’t do at home. Also like the idea of certification at Nat 4 ad raising the perception/value of this.
Hi Drew,
I think there are two clear options here: Either we adopt the approach outlined above and work to improve the internal assessment or we accept that the time and effort that went into developing / implementing it is a sunk cost and we drop it.
There are competing philosophies here. I am inclined to agree with the principle that internal assessment may be desirable but as a pragmatist I simply cannot see that there is the appetite for this in the teaching community at present. I think that in the name of consistency we have to move back towards a wholly external assessment model. Otherwise we are in danger of replacing an unwieldy model with a different unwieldy model. If some members of the physics community feel uncomfortable stating that external assessment is the best approach I think they may be inclined to view it as the least-worst. In the absence of off-the-shelf resources of a high quality it's the best way forward.
I feel that fairness and consistency can only be achieved by sitting a final National 5 exam in its current form. This level of achievement is most valued and understood by parents,colleges and employers. What we need to look at is the heavy burden of content and the time spent on assignments. In the changeover from Ordinary Grade to Standard Grade in the late eighties we had a similar scenario that took a couple of years to rectify. This involved a lot of the content taken out and the number of practical techniques required reduced from 10 to 8. Hopefully the current problems in National 5 will be dealt with in a similar manner.
National 4 has deen markedly devalued by not having an exit exam such as the General Level in Standard Grade. This could lead to students who were previously 'Foundation Level' achieving National 4 and not the National 3, which would be more appropriate. This group of students have not become more academic overnight and I feel that we are doing them a disservice in the long run. Despite my misgivings with National 4 I am willing to accept the status quo, but the prospect of a final National 5 exam being disgarded is a step too far!!!
I agree with David that I don't think there is the appetite in the profession to go to a completely internally assessed mode. It would be good to think we could get to a situation where teachers are trusted as professionals by those outside education, and indeed within our profession, to assess the performance to students. I think a key requirement of this is good shared professional dialogue/CPD/sharing - call it what you will - to agree and confirm standards. Not necessarily cheap and requiring time for all, but hopefully very productive time for all. I initially thought that the proposed verification procedures for CfE were to move in that direction with lead assessors in all local authorities helping bring us all together and share assessment information etc but it has not happened. The current relatively remote externally imposed verification process certainly does not help share knowledge of standards or instil confidence in the robustness of the system.
One relatively easy and simple way of easing the assessment burden on students and admin burden on teachers is to ensure the method of marking unit assessments, at very least the KU and PS components, are the same as those in any final exam. As a result the unit assessments would have a much more valid formative assessment component and would not force teachers to give even more school based assessment than that required by SQA in order to get meaningful information to feedback to students and report to parents on preparation for the final exam.
Think what you have outlines should form the starting point for professional debate over the next few years. There is no doubt in my minds that the assessment burden on both pupils and staff could and should be eased by e-assessment from the SQA. I very much like the idea that the assessments should be adaptive taking into account skills or knowledge demonstrated elsewhere or even at a higher level than the presentation of the course as a whole.
I dont think the profession is ready for change as we are still implementing but I think it is important the discussions are happening now so that when the system is ready for change we know what we want.
Interesting post Drew.
I LOVE suggestions numbers 1. and 3. - suggestion number 1 in particular is fab in so many ways. eAssessment - On Demand - Certification of Unit Passes. Brilliant. We should be implementing that now.
Not so sure about the National 4 element of suggestion number 2. We're big fans of the Added Value Unit as the course award in our department and we really wouldn't want to go back to having an exam at this level.
Apart from that - YES!
Drew,
In general, I agree with much of what is written.
1. N5 has an external examination that trumps all other assessment nested within the course and units, therefore, make the units optional. They have no headroom and no value in relation to the final exam so why do many kids have to waste their time doing them? If optional and certificated as you suggest, it may give the Unit awards value although it would be imperative to strip out the 4 skills competencies shambles where a kid can be told 'you have achieved 1/1 of Selecting - you are now a certified Selecting Meister!'
For N4 and other levels (our N3 assessments are literally cut and pasted bits of paper!) there is no recognition of levels of achievement. This must stop as it is demotivating for pupils. The difference between my best and poorest N4 child is scary! I would revamp the Unit assessments and offer an optional N4 exit exam graded to demonstrate ability.
I would agree that all internal assessment should be e-assessment. This would deal with internal verification and cross marking in a jiffy and mean that each individual kid would need to enter a GLOW login and an SQA Candidate Number to ensure security. The certification would be automatic, recorded and available to all interested parties.
2. Elective Summative Assessment
100% agree.
Why we have the melange of internal and external is beyond me.
3. Option 1- AVU/Assignments should be IDL Projects
We keep getting hit with the IDL stick, so why not make it compulsory that a pupil can enter 1 or more assignments of an IDL nature?
Option 2 - AVU/Assignments should be preparatory and part of the final examination with literacy, numeracy and other skills central to the contribution.
Forgive me for brevity but I am busy trying to forget my bad experiences of assignments the last 2 years.
Final Comment:
When I speak to pupils, the vast majority don't mind the idea of assignments but hate the repetition of effort and time required to do up to 8 of them. Please listen!
As an ex teacher, now tutor and parent who has come through National 5 and now a mix of new Hihger/CfE can I add what many parents think.
1 Remove the assignments in National 5 - pointless and stressful. How can you have an assignment in Physics where you don't know what the title is to be and the teacher can't help ! We had a different assignment from each of 8 National5s that took over 8 weekends of family life. It was a nightmare. We were all exhausted by it and had no energy for the exams. I also doubt that the pupils got very much out of these assignments.
2....The fact that there is too early a divide between those who sit National 4 and National5 is a big problem. This did not happen with Standard Grade where you either sat Foundation and General or General and Credit and could take the best mark you got - so you still had a chance to improve right up to the day of the exam.
3 If you didn't get to sit National 5 the problem locally here is that the schools do not have room for you to then take it in 5th year ! If you are lucky you get to sit in a Higher class and take the Higher ! But as you didnt even get to study for National 5 you are onto a loser almost from the start. The loss of the old "Comp O" is the problem here. There should be the safety net or fallback of at least getting a National 5 if you get for example a D at Higher.
4 The Universities need to recognise that many schools have limited choice of subjects that people can take. eg you might not get the chance to take a subject like computing at all as the classes are full. Yet the Universities are now asking for specifics,
5 The Appeal system should be restored. Many pupils at my local school ended up performing widely different to what they had been but they were not able to get an appeal. Yet other schools in the same authority were putting children who had the same circumstances through an Appeal. Yet the Appeal is also only a check of marking. We should probably go back to the days of it being a bit like if you had performed well all year you still got a chance of an Appeal if you did badly on the day of the exam. Also the system has no transparency. If a particular department has interpreted an assignment incorrectly across a school parents are not going to know. We are powerless in this situation and I suspect once parents cotton on there will be a number of pupils mysteriously going off sick on the day of the exam as that is the only way to get a traditional appeal !
6 It cannot just be a "given" that the sciences are harder to get at Higher as the head of my local education authority was saying. This is not OK. If kids taking the sciences are taking more than one sicence plus maths then that is a hard clutch of subjects but its what our country needs if we are to develop. Last year there were reports that if you took physics your overall pass mark at National 5 was only 55% compared to 85% if you didnt have physics. It is difficult to see the reasons for this but I wonder if its partly that the sciences are hard but also that the subjects have now all become so verbal. Science and Graphics etc has been invaded by "arty" type content !!
anyway I must stop ... I can assure you I could go on !!
[…] on from my post back in May 'Do Exams Pass Under CfE?', I have given the issues of assessment and certification some further consideration, which I […]
[…] on from my post back in May ‘Do Exams Pass Under CfE?‘, I have given the issues of assessment and certification some further consideration, which I […]
Well....
Now looks more like "Back to the Future". Unit assessments to be scrapped, probably longer exams and no formal assessment to be done by class teachers.
Although I do believe that the new standardised BGE assessments have been outsourced to an Australian company and will be online assessments.
Where's yer SQA noo?