Teach Secondary - Issue 14.6

development throughout the course of their study. This methodology is much more closely aligned to how adults are expected to manage their professional development in the workplace, where – all being well – they will be seen as equally motivated partners in their own growth and development. And yet, we persist in restricting young people to sitting in absolute silence, pen and paper in hand, while they answer questions that reward rote memorisation. We can look to other good examples from across our contemporary education system. We have been running Extended Project Qualification (EPQs), at our One Sixth FormCollege and Abbeygate Sixth Form College centres for several years at this point, which allow students to engage in extended project work, collaborate on real-world problems and access ongoing feedback, instead of only receiving summative judgements. The evidence gathered by our colleges so far indicates that students who engage in these projects don’t just perform better academically; they build resilience, get to exercise their creativity and develop the kind of deep learning that traditional exams explicitly inhibit . Another of our centres, West Suffolk College, meanwhile supports over 900 employers in the Eastern region, with over 2,000 apprentices in training. Here too, the training in question makes use of multiple assessment methods, including practical assessments, interviews and project-based work. This way, we can ensure that students are able to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and behaviours they’ve acquired throughout their apprenticeship, all while helping to prepare them more appropriately for the modern workplace. Trusted judgements Another issue is that teachers are typically trusted to assess students fromY7 through to Y11 – but when young people are due to progress to Y12, their judgements are suddenly viewed as flawed for some reason, with external bodies needing to be called upon to ‘validate’ their results. Surely secondary teachers – trained and dedicated professionals specialising in their chosen subject – are trustworthy enough to assess whether students are ready to progress to the next level? When students were unable to sit in examhalls due to COVID-19, we collectively trusted our educators’ judgements via the teacher-assessed grades that temporarily supplemented formal exams. While I readily acknowledge that there were teething problems with this process – understandably so, given that it was an incredibly stressful time – it conclusively demonstrated that schools were, in fact, capable of self-regulated assessment, and that teachers will indeed behave with all the professional integrity we know they possess when required. The government’s upcoming Curriculum and Assessment Review therefore represents an opportunity to ask significantly smarter questions beyond ‘ How can we reduce assessment volume? ’ Will the new approach finally let go of our increasingly outdated and uninspiring system? And do we honestly believe that high-stakes, non-referenced, memory-based assessment serves any legitimate educational purpose in the 21st century? The answer is clear – it doesn’t. Our government should instead have the courage to redesign assessments around the capabilities young people need to develop, using methods that support, rather than undermine their learning and wellbeing. Such a systemwould help every young person discover and develop their own unique potential. Given the mounting evidence of harm from our current approach, change is needed urgently. Otherwise, we’ll be failing our future citizens at the very beginning of their journeys through our ever-changing world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Nikos Savvas is CEO of Eastern Education Group, responsible for the organisation’s strategic direction, quality and financial stability, and also the principal of Abbeygate Sixth Form College; for more information, visit easterneducationgroup.ac.uk 37 teachwire.net/secondary A S S E S S M E N T TEACH SECONDARY SPECIAL ASSESSMENT