Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
INTRODUCTION
1. In May 2007, the Department submitted
a memorandum to the Education and Skills Committee's inquiry into
testing and assessment. This supplementary memorandum provides
further information relevant to that inquiry. The Government remains
committed to the assessment system as described in the original
memorandum.
NEW REGULATOR
FOR QUALIFICATIONS
AND TESTS
2. On 26 September 2007, the Secretary of
State announced plans to establish a new, independent regulator
of qualifications and tests. The regulator will be the guardian
of standards across the assessment and qualifications system and
will report to Parliament on the tests and qualifications system
and the value for money it offers the taxpayer.
3. Confidence in Standards: Regulating
and developing qualifications and assessment (Cm 7281) was
published jointly by the DCSF and the Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills on 17 December 2007, and sets out the
Government's proposals in greater detail. A consultation on these
proposals is running until 10 March 2008.
4. The proposed reforms have two goals:
firstly, to ensure that we have a regulatory system that continues
to maintain the high standards of qualifications and assessment
in England; and secondly, to ensure that learners, employers,
higher education and the general public have full confidence in
these standards and their consistency year on year. The reforms
will achieve these goals in the following ways:
— The scope, powers and functions
of the new regulator reflect the Government's principles of good
regulation and build on the experience and expertise of the QCA,
which has managed the qualifications and assessment system successfully
for the past 10 years. A number of changes to the existing regulatory
approach are proposed in Chapter 2 of Confidence in Standards.
The proposed regulatory system will allow the regulator to maintain
standards in the current system and to operate effectively in
the changing landscape of the coming years;
— The creation of the new regulator
will separate regulatory activity from the work of the QCA on
development and delivery of public qualifications. This will resolve
the perceived conflict of interest that exists with these functions
sitting in the same organisation; and
— The new regulator will be independent
of Ministers and will report to Parliament on its work. This will
allow it to demonstrate that it is carrying out its regulatory
activity independently of government, which will help to ensure
public confidence in the standards that it is regulating. The
Secretary of State wrote to the Chairman of the Select Committee
on the day the consultation document was published, inviting the
Committee to consider how it wished to monitor and review the
work of the new regulator.
5. The Office of the Qualifications and
Examinations Regulator will be a Non-Ministerial Government Department.
It will have its own chief executive, chair and non-executive
board. We will legislate to establish the new body at the earliest
available opportunity following the outcome of the current consultation
exercise. In the meantime, an interim regulator will be set up
under existing statutory powers in advance of next summer's exams.
SINGLE LEVEL
TESTS
6. The Department's previous memorandum
referred to the Making Good Progress (MGP) pilot, which
is trialling new ways to measure, assess, report and stimulate
progress in schools (paragraphs 37-40). It involves pupils in
Key Stages 2 and 3 in over 450 schools across 10 Local Authorities.
Since the submission of that memorandum the pilot has now begun.
It started in September 2007 and will run to July 2009. Its five
elements are:
— one-to-one tuition of up to
20 hours in English and/or maths for pupils behind national expectations
who are still making slow progress;
— a focus on assessment for learning;
— the introduction of single-level
tests which pupils can take "when ready";
— school progression targets (in
2008-09 this is to increase by at least 4% points the proportion
of pupils making 2 levels of progress in the key stage); and
— an incentive payment for schools
which make good progress with those children who entered the key
stage behind expectations.
7. Within the MGP pilot, we are looking
at how testing might more effectively support a personalised approach
to learning and encourage every child to make good progress throughout
their school careers. In December, 22,500 pupils took 43,000 single
level tests in reading, writing and mathematics. An independent
evaluation of the pilot being undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PWC).
8. Single level tests are shorter than the
current end of Key Stage tests and each covers a single level
of the National Curriculum, from Level 3 to Level 8. They are
aimed at pupils aged between seven and 14. They are intended to
confirm teachers' judgements and are designed to motivate pupils
by focusing on the next step in their learning. Pupils will take
a test which is pitched at the level at which they are judged
by their teacher to be working, rather than a test which spans
a range of levels. If they are unsuccessful, they will be able
to take the test again.
9. During the pilot, which runs until summer
2009, single level tests will be available in December and June
each year. Pupils will also take the current tests in English,
mathematics and science at the end of Key Stages 2 and 3.
10. In the Children's Plan, which we published
on 11 December, we signalled our intention to implement single
level tests in reading, writing and mathematics on a national
basis at the earliest opportunity, subject to positive evidence
from the pilot and endorsement of this approach from the regulator.
Those tests would replace the National Curriculum tests at the
end of Key Stages 2 and 3. We will also explore new options for
the assessment of science. In the meantime, the current National
Curriculum tests for science will continue.
ASSESSMENT FOR
LEARNING
11. The Children's Plan has also cited the
aim to make the use of tracking and Assessment for Learning (AfL)
tools and techniques truly universal across all schools, extending
them beyond the core subjects of English and mathematics. The
English and mathematics Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) materials,
already developed by the QCA, should become universally used in
schools, and we want to expand those tools into more subjects,
starting with science. Schools will be expected to have a systematic
approach to AfL and intervention as a key strategy in helping
both pupil and teacher understand where they are in their learning
and what their next steps should be. AfL, and especially the use
of tracking tools such as APP, also ensures that teachers' assessment
judgements against curricular targets are consistent, robust,
and build on a solid evidence base. This will be particularly
important if single level tests are introduced on a national basis,
so that teachers are able accurately to enter children for the
appropriate test when they are ready. £1.6 billion has been
committed for personalised learning over the next CSR period (2008-11)
to ensure that schools are able to do this.
GCSE CONTROLLED ASSESSMENT/COURSEWORK
12. As our previous memorandum explained
(paragraph 34), changes are being made to GCSE to respond to concerns
expressed about coursework—tightening and strengthening
assessment arrangements—as well as to ensure that specifications
develop to reflect the recent secondary curriculum review and
the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. Following
a series of consultations and reports, QCA recommended that controlled
assessments should replace coursework in the following subjects:
business studies, classical subjects, economics, English literature,
geography, history, modern foreign languages, religious studies
and social sciences. In addition, it recommended that in art and
design, design and technology, home economics, music and physical
education, internal assessments should continue with stronger
safeguards. It also recommended mathematics coursework be removed
from September 2007: this has now come into effect.
13. Controlled assessments are assessments
that take place under controlled conditions in schools and are
either set or marked by an awarding body. This approach will address
the need to balance concerns about potential cheating against
the added burden and cost to schools of monitoring every piece
of work a student does or increasing the number of exams.
14. In the summer of 2007, QCA consulted
on new GCSE qualification and subject criteria, incorporating
the above recommendations. They received clear support from most
of the respondents. The criteria have now been finalised and the
subsequently revised specifications will be available from September
2008 for first teaching in 2009. The exceptions are science, which
will remain unchanged, and English, English Literature, information
and communication technology (ICT) and mathematics, for which
new specifications will be available in the autumn term of 2009
ahead of first teaching in 2010. The English, ICT and mathematics
criteria are being revised on a slower timescale to other GCSEs
to allow time to incorporate the functional skills which are currently
being piloted.
NEW DIPLOMAS
15. As explained in our previous memorandum
(paragraph 43), to increase the options available to young people
the Government is introducing a new range of qualifications for
the 14-19 phase. Diplomas will provide a new way of assessing
standards at Levels 1, 2 and 3 in 17 lines of learning. Consortia
of schools, colleges and other providers will begin delivering
the first five Diplomas from September 2008. A further five will
be rolled out from September 2009, and four more in September
2010. By 2013, all students anywhere in the country will be able
to choose one of the first 14 Diplomas.
16. In October 2007, the Secretary of State
announced the introduction of three new Diplomas in Science, Humanities
and Languages—it is expected that these will be available
for first teaching in September 2011. Suitable Diploma Development
Partnership structures will shortly be established to specify
the most appropriate content and assessment arrangements for each
of these new Diplomas.
17. The Government has committed that in
2013 it will review the evidence and experience following the
introduction of all Diplomas to reach conclusions about how in
practice the overall qualification offer meets the needs of young
people in progressing to further study and employment. It will
consider the future of A levels and GCSEs in the light of this
evidence.
18. We are currently developing a strategy
for all 14-19 qualifications, to underpin our 14-19 reforms, and
will publish proposals for consultation shortly.
ASSESSMENT OF
DIPLOMAS
19. Diplomas are applied qualifications
and the approach to assessment needs to support learners to learn
how to apply their learning. Assessment will therefore be a combination
of internal controlled assessment and external assessment. In
designing the Principal Learning qualifications for the Diploma,
awarding bodies have chosen the assessment methods that best suit
the knowledge, skills and understanding required for each unit.
Units that involve internal controlled assessment will typically
focus on practical learning and those with a more theoretical
focus will be externally assessed. This approach is consistent
with our approach to other national qualifications. The majority
of GCSEs and A levels have a theoretical focus and therefore are
predominantly externally assessed: however, as set out above,
those GCSE subjects which have a greater focus on applied knowledge
and skills will include an element of controlled internal assessment.
20. QCA has recently published guidance
on controlled internal assessment which is available on their
website. This sets out how internal assessment may be controlled
in relation to how tasks are set, taken and marked and also how
teachers are trained to assess.
21. To ensure that the assessment system
and assessment practice for Diplomas in schools and colleges operates
to a high standard, we have given the National Assessment Agency
a remit to develop a national approach which will set standards
for high quality controlled internal assessment processes and
practice and will ensure the professional expertise of local assessors.
January 2008
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