NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp explains why he believes real change is needed to the assessment system, with potential benefits for learners at all stages of life and development.
Given the significant focus on assessment in education that has followed the two years of the pandemic so far, the question for me when thinking about the future is: “How radical a change is needed?”
Whether it’s abolishing GCSEs or changing grades from A-Z to 1-9, the real issue at the heart of the future system is whether the new system reflects the individual’s efforts, aspirations and capabilities better than the system I grew up with, still largely intact. Importantly, can the system be more inclusive and less stressful to teachers and students alike?
So, what do I want to replace 10 GCSEs and four A-levels with?
For reasons I won’t bore you with, my wife and I have used the pandemic to learn Portuguese on Duolingo. We now have a 304-day streak, unbroken. We have around 55,000 points and now we achieve 300 points a day from a slow start.
I don’t want to talk about the pedagogy behind Duolingo. I have some criticisms there, but I think there are some really interesting lessons on assessment and, above all, feedback.
The lessons are structured in levels around topics. There are tips for each section. A typical lesson takes around 10-15 minutes. At the end of each session points are given. After a number of topics, stories are opened. There are also timed lessons. Today we reached 74% of the course. We have found some topics harder than others. Each question has a discuss button and people can raise concerns and ask questions. Some phrases are ambiguous, or the English translation is tortuous. There are examples where there are multiple correct answers that generate debate. We find some of the discussions around Brazilian Portuguese particularly fascinating. There are leagues with relegation and promotion.
For children raised with gaming, the idea of levels and points comes naturally. Retrying a level until you get it right is part of the experience, not evidence of failure. So, instead of a Grade C, why not produce a system with 100,000 points available in 10 levels, with the ability to see areas of strength and weakness?
Importantly, the scoring follows stage, not age. Many parents are quite happy when their offspring are doing Grade 4 piano and Grade 2 violin at the same time. It is not evidence of failure that different skills develop at different paces for different children.
Why shouldn’t a child leave school with, say, five million points scattered across a wide-ranging curriculum?
Let me illustrate with some examples of how the assessment system could be adapted to support more personalised learning built around a child’s interest and capability.
Khalid is 12. His hobby is photography. He wants to understand colour better. He wants to do that now. Unfortunately, the physics curriculum covers that when he’s 13 and the art curriculum at 11. Here, his interests outside school could motivate his development across multiple subjects at a pace and direction of his choosing.
Amanda is 13. Her mother is Italian and they speak Italian at home. The school does not have an Italian teacher. If they did, she might get an “A”, but instead will get a “C” in French. Here her A grade may reflect less on the school than a C grade does. The school “fails” if she gets a C, but “succeeds” if she gets an A. Here, the rigidity of the curriculum and assessment models reflect neither the individual nor her teachers.
Hazel is 8 and a bookworm. She devours books and loves to talk about them, be they stories, science, geography or history. How does assessing her reading against a narrow range of books tied to specific topics demonstrate her strengths and interests? She is fascinated by space and is reading teenage books on the subject.
Every teacher I’ve met could tell me similar stories about the children they have taught.
I think it’s important also to think about what this might say about professional development of teachers.
Geoff teaches French. He speaks a little Spanish and has picked up some Greek on holidays. Using my Duolingo example above, why would it not be possible for him to develop language skills in other languages as part of his own development? It could be built around his personal responsibilities for family and leisure activities – again stage, not age. For the school, the ability to widen its language portfolio could be a valuable asset.
Similar models might help a chemistry teacher improve his understanding of, say, biology. Imagine a personal development plan where teachers agreed to 5,000 points a year of personal development, rather than 10 days, which may be difficult to manage and pressure of time may make ineffective.
None of this would be easy, or quick. But building assessment into the learning, rather than a bolt-on much later, could free teacher time to better use.
So many children are let down, in my opinion, by the current system that I will be disappointed if all we end up doing is replacing one set of exams by another with a rigid exam system and season. I’ve known children affected by divorce, hay fever, asthma and death of a parent, as just a few examples, whose grades did not reflect either their abilities or effort, or the ability and commitment of their teachers. Even worse, the month a child is born still has effects on grades at secondary school.
So, the real challenge is whether this would be more inclusive or not.
Here I can sit on both sides of that argument and remain undecided on how to optimise the system. My one observation is that from a young age, gaming is part of children’s lives across a wider social spectrum than is current societal expectation of schools. When a child gets stuck at Level 7, their friends will often help or share ideas. There is both competition and collaboration at work. Both are valuable adult skills.
Finally, the rich data from this approach could enhance the role of teachers as researchers and create a stronger culture of action research within education at school and college level. For me, this allows the creation of a record of achievement that allows for “partial” subjects, not just a few. A school visit to a museum, for instance, could have a quiz that is incorporated into the child’s records. After-school activities might also benefit from this approach. I visited a school some years ago that had an astronomy group. They were sharing topics and materials with other schools. That collaborative learning between teachers and schools was interesting to observe. Yet, there was limited recognition within the current system for that personal development.
A new year begins after two of the most difficult times any of us have experienced in our adult lives. Thank you all, for your effort and commitment.
Change is coming: let’s make it work for all learners, be they teachers or students.
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