During the pandemic, policy makers, school leaders and exam boards were suddenly faced with the challenge of how to award end of qualification grades to young people without the use of traditional exams. This raised issues of fairness, regional inequality, parity of standards and the impact of grade variations on next steps, both for pupils and post-16 and higher education institutions.
At events held by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) at the political party conferences in 2022, it became apparent that many of these issues remain of real concern, both for policymakers and the education sector. Themes that ran throughout the discussion included whether our current assessment system is inclusive enough; its (lack of) resilience during the pandemic; the role of technology and whether its use in assessment systems will widen or narrow attainment gaps.
Following these events, EPI and Pearson chose to bring together experts to consider the following key questions:
- Is our current assessment delivering on its intended aims? If not, why not?
- Does the assessment system need to be reformed? If so, how?
