Grade Inflation in Higher Education

The Editor

The Times of London

Sir,
Grade inflation in Higher Education ('Universities stand accused after top degrees soar' The Times 15/01/2016) is an inevitable consequence of the policy to apply market forces to the sector. Like independent schools who have operated in this environment for decades, universities are businesses selling education and competing to attract students. Unlike independent schools, universities not only teach but also can determine their own results. Given the economic pressures on these institutions to fill places, there is no incentive for them award low degrees. With three-quarters of degrees awarded at Upper-Second or First Class, the time has come for a separation of teaching and degree-awarding powers, as there is in secondary education.
Yours faithfully,
Mark S Steed
Director
Jumeirah English Speaking School, Dubai.

Elective use of laptops in examinations - Times Article

Article published in The Times 16/05/2015 on Berkhamsted School's introduction of elective use of laptops in public examinations.

Loophole allows students to use laptops in exams 

Nicola Woolcock Education Correspondent

Teenagers at an independent school will use laptops to sit some GCSEs and A levels this year, after their head teacher figured out a loophole to excuse them from hours of handwritten examinations.

The move could trigger a revolution in exams, speeding up the demise of the traditional test papers that are sat by about a million pupils each year.

Mark Steed, the headmaster of Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire, said that while schools taught using 21st-century technology, they were forced to revert to outdated methods for exams. Thirteen of his pupils have spent the past two years using only laptops in subjects such as English, history and religious studies, rather than taking handwritten notes. This means that exam boards must allow them to use laptops, Mr Steed said, as it is recognised as their “normal way of working”. Eight took exams this way last year, the first year the school gave pupils the opportunity to do so. Until now, most schools have allowed only pupils with special needs to use technology in exams, complying with regulations laid down by the Joint Council of Qualifications, which represents exam boards. However, a clause in its guidance says:

“Centres [schools] are allowed to provide a word processor, with the spelling and grammar check/predictive text disabled, to a candidate where it is their normal way of working within the centre.” 

Berkhamsted School plans to broaden the practice in the next few years and other independent schools could follow suit. It comes amid growing concerns about children being marked down for illegible handwriting in exams, as they are not used to writing at length.

Mr Steed said:

“At present, new technologies are helping young people to learn better both in and out of the classroom, but then we transport them through time back to the 1930s to make them sit an examination. No wonder there is scepticism about the value of new technologies in education when the exam system is forcing us to use them with one hand tied behind our back.” 

He said that tablet and app-based learning was beginning to transform education for pupils aged four to 14, but then schools got cold feet when it came to GCSEs and A levels.

“As long as the exam boards and universities require young people to sit formal examinations in rows, in silence and without access to technology as a point of reference, then their schooling will inevitably devote significant time and energy into training them to excel in those conditions,”

Peter Hamilton, the chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference academic policy committee, said: “It could be a very interesting way of working in the future.”

See also Full Blogpost:  Education, New Technologies and the Elephant in the Examination Hall

Education, New Technologies and the Elephant in the Examination Hall

Assess the potential for technology-enabled innovation in products/services and processes in your organisation: 

Thus ran the assignment question for the 'Innovation and Technology module' of the Executive Masters in Management course that I am studying with Ashridge Business School.

What is the potential for technology-enabled innovation in Secondary Education?
Well it's enormous - young people learning collaboratively, being creative in their learning, sharing apps, learning through gaming and so on. But hold on .. . . . . . . (and it's not me putting the breaks on here) . . . . . the potential for technology-enabled innovation in secondary education is currently limited by one significant external factor – the nature of British examination system. 

At present, new technologies are helping young people to learn better both in and out of the classroom - but then we take them away from their collaborative connected learning environment, and transport them through time back to the 1930s to make them sit an examination. No wonder there is skepticism about the value of new technologies in education when the exam system is forcing us to use them with one hand tied behind out back. 

Whilst tablet and app-based learning is beginning to transform education at KS1, KS2 and KS3, the whole process gets stuck there; and schools, understandably, get cold feet when is comes to KS4 and KS5. So long the Exam Boards (and Universities) require young people to sit formal examinations in rows, in silence, without access to technology (as a point of reference), then the nature of the schooling that takes place prior to those exams will inevitably devote significant time and energy into training them to excel in those conditions. Rather than getting the most out of the new technologies available to them, quite understandably, schools are harnessing new C21 technologies to develop C20 skills in order to sit C20 examinations. Thus it is no surprise that, when given a totally free choice of device to bring into school, 98% of Berkhamstedians from Y10 to Y13 choose a laptop. This is automation not transformation.

Online Examinations? 

Changes in examination board regulations mean that since Summer 2013 pupils who do not have a Specific Learning Difficulty who use a laptop as their "normal way of working" accrue a right to use laptops in public examinations: 

“Centres are allowed to provide a word processor with the spelling and grammar check/ predictive text disabled to a candidate where it is their normal way of working within the centre, unless an awarding body’s specification says otherwise. This also includes an electronic brailler, an iPad or a pc tablet.” JCQ General and Vocational Qualifications, Instructions for conducting examinations 1 September 2012 to 31 August 2013. Section 8.8 p.24;  (My emphasis) 

There is no inherent advantage in using laptops. The laptops have to be provided by the centre, the spell check has to be disabled and the pupils get no additional time. Parents are charged £100 for the provision of a 'clean' exam-ready laptop - this cost covers mocks and Summer exams. 

However, this is recognition by JCQ and the Exam Boards that laptops are the normal way of working for some pupils and that it would be penalising them not to allow them to sit exams using a laptop. ">It is for each school to define 'normal way of working'.
At Berkhamsted, we took the view that the pupil had to use the laptop in lessons and for homework for the length of their GCSE, AS or A2 course. As a consequence of this change, this year 13 Berkhamstedians (eight boys and five girls) have chosen to sit a proportion of their GCSEs and A-levels on a laptop under the terms of these regulations, mainly in those subjects which require extended pieces of writing such as English, History and Religious Studies. Small steps forward, but, again, this is automation not transformation.

Berkhamsted School Elective Laptop Use in Exams 2014 and 2015

Google in Exams? 

Mark Dawe, chief executive of OCR, argued that pupils should have access to the Internet when doing examinations on the basis that memorising reams of information was “not how the modern world works” (See 'Let students use websites during examinations' Times 01/05/2015). He is quite right. This is not a new debate, I recall a debate within the Cambridge Theology faculty when I was a student, as to whether or not undergraduates should be allowed to have a bible in their examinations. Access to Google is not an enormous step on from 'open book' English Literature examinations that were part of A-level English for many years. It all comes down to what we are testing here - knowledge of facts? the ability to put an argument together? or the ability to research?
Concerns about cheating in exams which have internet access are overstated. No one here is advocating that pupils be allowed to communications with others during exams. Key-stroke capture (which records what each candidate did whilst online) and plagiarism software, such as Turnitin, provide the means and method to deter and police the issues of access to the Internet.

The current examination hall reflects a time that has passed. There is little doubt that the examination system needs to change and will change. 

None of us works that way anymore. We work in teams. We work on shared documents. We work with people the other side of room - and the other side of the world. We run our diaries, take notes and communicate with other through our phones, our tablets, our laptops and our desktops. Indeed of most of the written notes we make end up on the fridge! When you last needed a fact, or a quote, or to check a spelling, did you pull an a encyclopedia, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations or the OED off the shelf? or did you Google or Wikipedia it? Social media has meant that our professional networks include people we have never met and are never likely to meet. LinkedIn is replacing business cards (at least in the West!); and we share ideas and take part in debates across continents. We work differently, and, because of that, we should teach, learn and assess differently.

So what will the school and university assessment system of the future look like? 

If the future assessment system is to prepare young people for the demands of the C21 workplace (or indeed C21 academia), it is likely that there will be greater component of teamwork and collaborative working. Dissertations, projects, videos and presentations (think Screencast rather than PowerPoint) are likely to be a greater proportion of the overall assessment. This has already happened in some areas - the Ashridge MBA programme abandoned its final examination a number of years ago and now incorporates a number of practical assessments - such as 'live case' consultancy exercises - rather than assessing totally through extended essays and exams. 

Whilst traditional Harvard-referenced Dissertations assessing the skills of critical analysis and evaluation may remain as one component in a portfolio, we are likely to see a greater range of assignments where creativity, visual literacy and 'the ability to sell an idea' are likely to be valued skills, 

The end of examinations? It is very likely that universities and employers will still want a qualification system that identifies and distills out individual performance where a least part of the assessment process is conducted against the clock, It is almost certain that these will be online and will be much more like the tests that top law and accountancy firms are using as the first round of their employment screening process. Typically these give the candidate some key texts and data which they have a specific period of time to digest, before writing a report against the clock drawing on these sources. So it is a safe bet that exams are here to stay.

Is this new assessment system really that radical? These ideas do not really represent as radical a shift in our thinking as might at first be seen. Afterall, our present examination GCSE and A-level examination system already has some of the components of C21 examination: we examine individuals on their team performance in Drama and Sport; we have open book examinations in English Lit and we pre-release material in Art to allow A-level Art candidates to research weeks in advance of their final practical exam.

Squaring the Circle - The Greatest Educational Challenge

"One of the greatest challenges facing leading schools in this country is how best to prepare you, young people, for what is an increasingly competitive market place for top jobs. To some extent it was ever thus, but the difference between your generation and that of those of us who are parents is that you are competing in a truly global marketplace. You are not just competing with the best in the UK – you are competing with the best in the world. There are more A* and outstanding pupils in China than there are pupils in Britain, so if you are going to be the movers and shakers of the next generation then you will need to raise your game.

It is not so much “Berko’s Got talent” or even “Britain’s Got talent” – but it’s “The World’s Got Talent”. How will you compete? And how will your education here at Berkhamsted prepare you for that world? Britain has long since abandoned any pretence of having an economy based on making things. As Richard Sykes of Imperial College, formerly Chief Executive of Glaxo-Wellcome puts it:

 'We can’t compete against the manpower of India and China: we have to use our brains.' 

"Independent Schools like Berkhamsted have a long and distinguished history in producing world-class leaders in their various fields and they have an important role to play if UK PLC is going to remain competitive on the international stage. In the global employment market, you have a number of advantages – you are native speakers of the new global language and you have relatively cheap and easy access to some of the best universities in the world, but this is not enough – you need more – you need world-class schooling.

"The problem that we face in schools is that there is a growing dislocation between the standard school curriculum and the world of work. I believe that the exam system is the greatest obstruction to preparing young people for the world of work because it is completely out of kilter with what people actually do in the workplace. At no point in any job do people ever work alone, in silence, without technology or collaboration; and no one ever writes a handwritten essay. 

"Changes in working patterns and the increasing use of technology in business combined with subtle shift in our A-level system are making this dislocation even greater. In the past somebody who had a bit of flair could write an essay and be given an ‘A’ for it even if it was not the approach the examiner expected, because they had written it in an interesting way. But in recent years exam boards have tried to automate their marking processes and that approach has been drummed out of the system because examiners do onscreen marking with a checklist of all the key words which need to be there. The consequence is that we are coming up with a generation of people who are very accurate and don't make mistakes, but who also don't take risks. 

"So, at a forward-looking school like Berkhamsted we have to try to square the circle: we need to teach young people to pass examinations so that they can get the grades to gain places at top universities to have the start that we want them all to have in life; but we also need to nurture young people who can think for themselves, who are creative, who can solve problems, who can think out of the box, who can be an effective part of a team, who have passions and interests, who make connections, who are articulate, who are good with people, who have a sense of community and of service; and who, above all, develop the values that will enable them to make a difference in the world.

"Education is about so much more than passing examinations. It is not about cribs and shortcuts. It is about broadening the mind. It is about making connections. It is about abandoning the motorway and taking the scenic route. It is about making discoveries. It is about a deeper understanding that comes from really knowing something well. It is about kicking around ideas with like-minded people. It is about taking yourself out of your comfort zone. It is about taking risks. It is about taking time. I am not arguing this out of a romantic view of how education was in the past. I believe that these things are important for individuals and for us as a nation. Britain’s traditions in the creative arts, in science and innovation have been fed by an education system has led the world. Schools like these and our top universities have led the world by teaching young people to “think”. If all that teachers do is to teach to the exam, and if all pupils do is to learn what they need to know to pass the exam, then we are failing to educate. If we fail to educate, we will lose the Nation’s greatest asset. That is how we square the circle – that is the Berkhamsted vision for Education."

Part of my address at the Berkhamsted School Speech Day on Thursday 3rd July, 2014

Soapbox: The exam system is seriously hindering efforts to prepare young people for the workplace.

Testing young people's ability to work alone in silence without access to technology is outdated and irrelevant, the Principal of Berkhamsted School tells Rachel Bridge

The present British examination system is seriously hindering efforts by schools to prepare young people for the workplace, says Mark Steed, Principal of Berkhamsted School, a highly regarded independent school in Hertfordshire. It stifles the very qualities that British businesses need and urgently needs reforming, he said. Steed said: "The exam system is the biggest obstruction to preparing young people for the world of work because it is completely out of kilter with what people actually do in the workplace. At no point in any job do people ever work alone, in silence, without technology or collaboration. And handwritten essays are just not something that anyone produces in the workplace."

The exam system is completely out of kilter with how people work in the workplace, says Mark Steed 

He said that while teachers have been quick to respond to the changing needs of the workplace by introducing technology and collaboration into the classroom, their ability to do more is being seriously inhibited by the need to prepare young people for exams which bear no resemblance to the way the workplace actually operates. He said: "Education is embracing new technologies at an extremely fast rate.

Teachers are using laptops and iPads and tablet devices in lessons and they are encouraging students to work collaboratively through software such as Google Docs. But the problem is that we have still got a 19th century examination system which involves sitting in rows in silence without technology or collaboration."

Steed warned that the present examination system also inhibits creativity and flair, the very things that we as a society should be encouraging in young people - not just for their personal development, but because they help drive the economy forward.

He said: "In recent years exam boards have tried to automate their marking processes so we have ended up with tick box marking of A levels. In the past somebody who had a bit of flair could write an essay and be given an A for it even if it was not the approach the examiner expected, because they had written it in an interesting way." "But that has now been drummed out of the exam system because examiners do onscreen marking with a checklist of all the key words which need to be there. The consequence is that we are coming up with a generation of people who are very accurate and don't make mistakes, but who also don't take risks."

He added: "The competitive advantage of Britain as a nation is based around problem solving and creativity but the exam system at the moment mitigates against both of those things. It punishes people who are creative or quirky or whose answers aren't the exact ones on the sheet. That means teachers end up having to rein in students' creativity and problem solving skills in order to prepare them to sit these exams."

Steed called on the government to urgently overhaul the examination system so that it rewards rather than stifles qualities needed in the workplace, saying: "We need an exam system that encourages creativity, and rewards students who come up with nonstandard answers. Creativity is one of the UK's great strengths - we produce brilliant designers and scientists, engineers and architects and we have some of the most creative and best problem solvers in the world. But unless we sort out the exam system we are in danger of losing that."

This article was written by Rachel Bridge and appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 09/06/2014

Three Reasons why Schools and Parents are not nurturing a generation of Entrepreneurs:

A journalist contacted me last week to ask if I thought that schools should teach enterprise and entrepreneurship: How important is it? Is it a good idea? Is it realistic for teachers to try to teach it? and, if so, how far should we go?  Is there a danger that it could overshadow traditional subjects? The questions were framed in a way that suggested that, whilst attending various carol services and nativity plays, I had missed a pronouncement from the Secretary of State that 'Enterprise and Entrepreneurship' was to be the next candidate for inclusion in the Gove/National Curriculum. The questions posed struck a chord. They open up the important debate about how both school and home are bringing up this generation, and how this will impact on their ability to cope in the world of work . . . .

Qualities of the Entrepreneur

Three of the most important qualities of enterprise and entrepreneurship are arguably:

1. the ability to take risks; 
2. the ability to pick yourself up when things go wrong; and
3. the ability to make connections and approach a problem in a novel way.

Unfortunately, today these are alien concepts. Here are three reasons why I believe that the implicit messages that parents and schools are sending to young people foster quite the opposite values.

"Have you got a risk assessment for that?"

Think of your fondest childhood memory - I wager it was outside, and that was away from the supervision of adults. Chances are that your mother sent you out to play saying "Don't come back till tea time." Mine did - most did. Looking back on my childhood, it's amazing that I'm alive. We went off to play in the way that boys did - we climbed trees, we broke into condemned buildings that had collapsing floors, I explored all the loft spaces of the house, went on all-day bike rides, and so on. Undoubtedly it was dangerous - but we learned to take and manage risks. Children don't do that anymore. Their idea of danger is served up by Alton Towers:  it's scary, but fundamentally it's safe - you think that your going to Oblivion, but really you know that you'll get to queue up for the next ride.

The same goes for travel - so few pupils walk or even ride a bike to school. Most are chauffeured by parents everywhere - even to be dropped off to catch the School bus.  Few ever use public transport and most can't even read a railway or bus timetable, let alone plan a long distance journey. In contrast, I walked three-quarters of a mile to catch a train to school each morning (sometimes carrying a 'cello!) When I was 13 I was put on a train at Chelmsford and expected to get myself  to Valenciennes in north west France by train and ferry (operating for a part in my schoolboy French) to stay with my pen-friend. Unthinkable today - and all the more so when one thinks that we grew up in a world without mobile phones. It was a different world - but I'm not convinced that it was any more dangerous.

There is little doubt that we have become overprotective of our children, that they gain independence later (helicopter parents at University!) and that they are far less skilled at managing risk. If this is the case, how can we really expect this generation of young people to show enterprise and take the risks needed by entrepreneurs if on a daily basis they remain wrapped up in cotton wool?

"Practically Perfect in Every Way"

There is a growing culture in independent schools and amongst fee-paying parents that a B or a C grade is a failure. There are two factors driving this. First, A-level grade inflation means that top universities find it increasingly difficult to discriminate between candidates. In a world where significant numbers of pupils have A* and A grades - anything less and your chances of getting into a top 10 university goes out of the window. Secondly, School league tables (and therefore a schools' academic standings) are determined by the percentage of A*+A. 

The consequence of this is that young people are expected to be "practically perfect in every way" - or at least to have a perfect academic record. There is no doubt that young people are under much greater pressure to perform at a high level than we were at school:  last summer the vast majority of Berkhamsted Sixth held and made university offers in excess of ABB  - pressure reserved only for the most prestigious courses in the 1980s.

Perhaps the most bizarre unintended consequences of the "A-grade = Pass culture" is that children are no longer allowed to fail. Parents are increasingly vocal as soon as a grade drops below an A. Let me illustrate:

When an essay set early in the AS course is marked at a B or C grade, it is not uncommon for a parent to contact the school to ask why their child has dropped a grade. ["It has been very upsetting for her."]  It does not take long before the accusation that "The teacher clearly hasn't taught them properly!" is levelled. When it is explained to the parent that few experienced teachers would expect a pupil in their first weeks of the Lower Sixth to be writing at A grade standard [because it takes time to develop a mature essay writing style and that the transition from GCSE to A-level is not an easy one] a typical parental repost is along the lines of  "Well, your expectations should be higher, Mr Steed" or "Why set a task when they can't get an A grade?"

Something has been lost here. Getting a B or a C grade has always been a normal part of the learning process. B or a C grades should indicate that a pupil has reached a certain standard, but that there is more work to do. Yet in our "practically perfect" culture, any deviation from an A grade is seen as an aberration that in some way damages the young person's self esteem. 

Learning to cope with failure and disappointment is an important part of life and schools have a fundamental part to play in this. How a young person reacts to getting a B or a C grade is important: "What do I need to do to get an A grade?" "Where did I go wrong?" "What does an A grade essay look like?"  There the  is a real danger that we are creating a generation of young people who lack the basic resilience that is fundamental to success in the world of work - let alone embarking on a career as an entrepreneur.

"We are breading a generation of accountants, not entrepreneurs." 

There was a time when I started teaching when we all knew what an A grade essay looked like - it was sometimes difficult to put your finger on why, but we all knew one when we saw one. We knew for the same reasons that Oxbridge dons 'know' what a First looks like (or indeed an Beta+? for that matter) - because it had been passed down through the generations with professional rigour and pride. The old system could accommodate those with flair, it could accommodate the maverick. That was all part of the fun. Teachers would encourage the bright pupil to take a different angle or to make the quirky connection, knowing that she would be rewarded for doing so. Today flair is an alien concept to examiners: the mark schemes are so rigid that we only reward the careful. The consequence is that the bright pupil has the maverick beaten out of him. Flair has become a vice. Making quirky connections a menace. We have an A-level system that is breading a generation of accountants: they are reliable, they are careful, they don't make mistakes and they get the job done - they are trained to think in the same way. Consequently most bright pupils don't have an entrepreneurial bone in their body.

Final Thoughts

I'm sure that it would be very good for the country if more young people were to go out into the world to become Entrepreneurs. However, I don't think that 'enterprise and entrepreneurship' can be taught in a classroom - indeed the key skills are best taught outside of the classroom.

1. Risk:  "We expose young people to risk in controlled situations" (Duncan Hardy, Director of Outdoor Education at Berkhamsted). Young people need to learn to take and manage risk. Some of the most important things that we do at school are the most dangerous: the rock climbing club, the CCF survival weekends, Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions and so on - these activities teach young people a whole range of important skills and give them "character-forming" experiences that will shape them for life. They should be a fundamental part of every child's education.
2. Failure is a great teacher:  "Life isn't fair - get used to it."  Young people need to learn how to cope with disappointment and failure. Resilience is a vital life skill that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks. We need to let young people fail, if they are to succeed.
3. In Praise of the B grade:  We all need to see ourselves as "work-in-progress" - we are never "the finished article": to think of ourselves as A* is hubris.
4. Encourage the maverick:  We need people who can see problems from different angles. We need to value people who can make connections. We need to encourage intellectual risk-taking.  In terms of the examination system, this will never be possible if we continue on the path to tick-box examining.

Mobile Device Policy: Use of Mobile Devices in School and in Public Examinations

Changes in the JCQ regulations mean that pupils who do not have a Specific Learning Difficulty who use a laptop as their "normal way of working within the centre" accrue a right to use laptops in public examinations:

“Centres are allowed to provide a word processor with the spelling and grammar check/ predictive text disabled to a candidate where it is their normal way of working within the centre, unless an awarding body’s specification says otherwise. This also includes an electronic brailler, an iPad or a pc tablet.” 

JCQ General and Vocational Qualifications, Instructions for conducting examinations 1 September 2012 to 31 August 2013. Section 8.8 p.24 

This potentially has enormous consequences for schools who move to BYOD. Clearly not all schools will want to go down the route of increasing the number of pupils taking examinations on "word-processors" (the exam regulation term).It is down to each school to define the "normal way of working within the centre"

Given our increasing litigious age, it is prudent for all schools to have a Mobile Device Policy which defines "normal way of working" for that school, lest pupils and parents demand that they be allowed to use laptops in public examinations.

At Berkhamsted, we moved to allowing our pupils in Year 10 and above to bring in their own devices for work in School in September 2012. Here are some some key sections of the policy, which cover the use of mobile devices in classrooms and of "word-processors" in public examinations by pupils who do not have SEN:

Berkhamsted School Mobile Device Policy 

Use of Laptops and Portable Devices in Lessons 

• Pupils who have a professionally assessed Special Educational Need or Disability may use laptops in lessons, where there is a formal recommendation for laptop use. 
• It is only in exceptional circumstances that an Early Years or Key Stage One pupil would be permitted use a laptop in lessons. 
• Pupils in Year 10 and above may use laptops in lessons. 
• Pupils may only use Smart Phones in lessons, with permission of their teacher – and only when instructed to do so. 
• Recording of Lessons: Pupils may not record lessons or any part of thereof, unless instructed by their teacher to do so. 

Use of Laptops in Examinations 

Liability Issues 

• Pupils and parents should understand that using a Laptop in an examination is not without risk. 
• The School shall use reasonable endeavours to ensure the Laptop is suitable for use by the pupil in an examination, is in good working order prior to any examination and is capable of operating by its own power source if necessary. 
• Unless negligent, the School accepts no responsibility for any malfunction or failure of a laptop to operate properly during an examination. 

The Use of Laptops in Examinations for Pupils without a Specific Learning Difficulty 

• “Normal Way of Working within the Centre” Berkhamsted Schools Group defines “normal way of working within the centre” in the following way: 

• The candidate must have used a laptop for at least 15 months prior to the public examination. 
• The candidate must use the laptop for at least 75% of their work in both in class and preps in each subject to qualify for examination laptop use. 
• Candidates who opt to use a laptop in public examinations are not required to do so in every subject. Candidates are advised to use a laptop only in appropriate subjects under the guidance and recommendation of subject teachers. For example, a candidate may apply only to do their public examinations in “written subjects” on a laptop and to do examinations by hand those subjects which require specialist notation or have a greater numerical or diagrammatic components. 

Costs 

• The cost of providing “clean” laptops will be passed on to Parents in the form of a charge on their termly bill.
• The school will provide this service on a non-profit basis. 

Applications for laptop use 

• Candidates must apply in writing to the School Examination Officer by the date specified at the start of the academic year for each public exam session. 
• Candidates must specify in which examinations they intend to use a word processor. 
• Candidates must provide evidence of continuous laptop use for the specified period. 
• Candidates must attend an IT training session to learn to use the exam word processors effectively. 
• Forms for this purpose are available from the School Examination Officer.

Bring Your Own Device - Strategy and Exams

Presentation at the Berkhamsted School ICT Open Day, 12/02/2013
Mark S. Steed and Dr Nick Dennis.

The Sorry Truth about A-level Re-Marks

I hadn't spotted it in the paperwork and I am yet to meet anyone who did, but OCR have changed the way in which they do re-marks.

Re-mark v. Review

Previously, when a candidate or centre believed that the original examiner (Examiner1) to have awarded the wrong mark, the script was re-marked by a different examiner (Examiner2), this mark took precedence and overall grades were adjusted accordingly. This no longer happens in every case.

The process now applied by OCR is not actually to re-mark the script, rather it is to review that the original mark is in the correct band. So long as Examiner1 put the essay into the right band, the mark remains unchanged. Only in those cases where Examiner2 places the mark into a different band will the mark change.

This is borne out by our Berkhamsted School's A2 OCR re-mark statistics:

• 26/35 re-marks have seen no change
• 3/35 have seen a change of ≤3
• 1/35 has seen a change of 4-6 marks
• 5/35 have seen a change of >6 marks

The inherent injustice of the OCR Review system:

In cases where Examiner1 gives a mark that is at the bottom of the band, it is quite possible that Examiner2 might place the pupil in the same band but with a mark up to 4 marks higher on each question (depending on the band). However, so long as the mark given by Examiner 2 is in the same band, it is the Board’s policy that the mark will remain unchanged.

Thus it is quite possible for a candidate who has been placed at the bottom of a band on two essays to be evaluated by Examiner2 as being 8 marks or more better than the evaluation of Examiner1 and yet not their remark be returned with no change in the mark because it falls within the same band. For those candidates who fall just short of a grade boundary, eight marks can be the difference between going up a grade and gaining a place at their chosen university.

Marking Low: A case study

Sadly, those of us who have worked within the British Examination System for a number of years are only too aware that there is a considerable range in the quality of marking both at GCSE and A-level. If Examiner1 consistently places candidates at the bottom of the correct banding, then those candidates and that centre will be penalised and now have lost the mechanism to receive an uplift within the band.

Because Centres can now request to see the A-level scripts, we have a growing body of evidence that, here at Berkhamsted, we have suffered from at least one examiner disproportionately placing pupils at the bottom of band. (He placed 7 out 10 scripts at the bottom of bands). Other schools are reporting the same phenomenon.

We have long known that some examiners are more generous than others. Requesting that a script is re-marked gives a candidate and centre the opportunity to to ensure that candidates are not penalised by an excessively harsh marker. The OCR review system undermines this.

OCR: Recognising Achievement - I don't think so! #bringbackremarks

A-level should not be a political football - it's not fair on the players!

As with the National trend reported in the Press, Berkhamsted's A-level results are down a little on last year.

It is disappointing, but it was no surprise. The jungle drums have been beating for weeks that the Secretary of State wanted the headline that this Government had put an end to grade inflation - and he got it. There is little doubt that there was top-down pressure on chief examiners. Members of the teaching staff who are A-level examiners commented that there were tighter marking directives from Chief Examiners than seen in previous years.

There is a fundamental problem in implementing a "reduce the top grades" policy and that is that AS-level accounts for 50% of the overall A-level grades. By the time a typical Berkhamsted pupil takes their final A2 modules, he or she is often sitting on a high A grade (with marks to spare) that means that he or she only needs a B or in some cases a high C grade to attain an overall A grade. To manipulate the results means moving the A2 goal-posts a long way.

This is not just special pleading from a disappointed Headteacher. Berkhamsted is not alone. Many schools are experiencing the same phenomenon. The Admissions tutor for History at a leading Russell Group university commented in an email today:

“My personal impression is that History seems to have been rather harshly marked across the board (lots of students with glittering GCSEs and AS levels, suddenly falling short at A-level)."

And that brings me on to University Entrance

University Entrance

Michael Gove picked a bad year to move the goal posts, for the changes in HE funding meant that universities were pushed into giving offers of at least AAB to qualify for the higher (£9k p.a.) funding. It is quite apparent that Gove’s fiat has caught University Admissions tutors on the hop.

The situation in Berkhamsted at 1800 yesterday was:

• 67/147 met first choice offer (46%)
• 46/147 met reserve offer (31%)
• 34/147 missed both offers and need to use clearing (23%)

The situation at 1300 today was:

• 109/147 met first choice offer (74%)
• 23/147 met reserve offer (16%)
• 15/147 missed both offers and need to use clearing (10%)

42 (28%) pupils missing the the grades for their first choice university being offered places is unprecedented. Again, Berkhamsted is not alone - a number of other independent schools have experienced the same phenomenon.

So, despite all the angst of the past 36 hours we are back to where we should be with a lot of happy pupils and parents who have got into the universities of their choice.

But was it all worthwhile? Mr Gove may have got his headline, but he has gone a long way to undermine the confidence of teachers in the system. Pupils who have worked hard for two years end up with a bitter taste in their mouths as their hard work is not recognised by the examiners.

A-level should not be a political football - it simply isn't fair on the players!

Common Entrance Exam to go online

Plans are being drawn up to put the Common Entrance exam online in an attempt to make it less stressful for pupils, according to IAPS. Introduced in 1904, the Common Entrance is the national 13+ test taken by children applying to Independent Schools, particularly the large, national boarding schools. David Hanson, IAPS Chief Executive, said: “Other examination systems have come and gone, but Common Entrance has remained because it has great qualities. What we need to do now is build on those qualities and make best use of new technology to ease the burden of examinations on young pupils.”

Private school test goes online to ease stress BBC Website 04/01/2011

Related Blogpost:
Common Entrance: past its sell-by date?

Independent Schools still delivering at A-level

Pupils educated in the Independent sector are three times more likely to get at least three A grades at A-level than pupils from maintained sector schools.

Figures published this week by the Department for Education show that only eight per cent of pupils in comprehensive schools gained three As, compared with 27 per cent in selective state grammar schools and 31.4 per cent in the independent sector.

What this means is that last year the numbers of A-level candidates getting 3 A grades were as follows:

• 11,185 in Independent Schools [41.2%]
• 10,050 in Comprehensive Schools [37.0%]
  
• 5,939 in Selective/Grammar Schools [21.8%]
  

Sadly the Statistics do not give a breakdown for the three sectors for the percentages of pupils gaining the A*, but the gap is likely to be even greater when these are taken into consideration. [The top Grammar schools were getting about 20% A* as opposed to over 40% in the selective Independent Sector. The national average was 8%]

Given this perhaps it is not surprising that Independent Schools dominate the places awarded at top universities.

Newspaper Coverage:
'Private schools dominate top A-level grades' Daily Telegraph 21/10/10

State v private: The A-level gulf widens with fee-payers now three times more likely to get straight As Daily Mail 21/10/10

To view the DfE Statistics:
DfE: GCE/Applied GCE A/AS and Equivalent Examination Results in England, 2009/10 (Provisional) Table 1a

Have we got the right A* at A-level?

In an interesting article, Martin Stephen, The High Master of St Paul's, argues that the introduction of the A* at A-level is "the right idea, but dreadfully executed."

Daily Telegraph Article: A-level results: How can we rescue our examination system?

I have a great sympathy with Martin Stephen's argument. As I have argued previously, we desperately need a means of identifying our brightest and best to enable our universities and employers to select the most able. However, I question whether or not the mechanism chosen for doing this - rewarding those who get over 90% on their A2 module - is the right one. Ultimately this system favours those who are most careful and make the fewest mistakes. There is no scope here for taking risks or for developing creativity or flair. Not making mistakes is undoubtedly a useful attribute - we value it greatly in our accountants and medics, but we also need to encourage those who are going to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions to the next generation of problems. Given the propensity of teachers to teach to the test, I am not sure that the A* is fostering this important aspect.

A* at A-level: Time for "fair" access?

It was always going to happen. I couldn't believe that the last Government, with its overt social-engineering agenda, introduced it. On the eve of its first award, its likely impact is beginning to dawn. The introduction of the A* at A-level was always going to be divisive. After all, to allow top sixth formers to demonstrate that they are better than most of the 25% of their peers who get A grades, is fundamentally divisive.

To achieve an A* at A-level the candidate has to score over 90% on the A2 [Upper Sixth - Y13] component of the course - almost universally recognised to be the more demanding part of A-level. Thus, the introduction of the A* should make a positive contribution to identifying our Nation's academic elite and thus provide a mechanism by which our most prestigious universities can award places on the basis of merit.

To date, universities have been very cautious about using the A* as part of their offers. This is understandable given that many admissions tutors are primarily concerned with filling their quotas and thus are nervous about the impact of any change to the A-level system lest it flood them with successful candidates, or scare good applicants away. For the 2010 entry only Cambridge, Bristol, Imperial and UCL of the Russell Group universities gave offers that included the A*. The standard offer at Cambridge was A*AA, with the occasional maverick Cambridge admission tutor asking for A*A*A of borderline candidates.

However, going forward, one would expect universities to embrace the A* as a differentiating qualification for their most prestigious, oversubscribed courses. Imperial are reported to be intending to make some A*A*A offers next year, but wider picture is that many top universities are that many are reluctant to use the A*.

Sir Martin Harris, director of the government's Office for Fair Access, said the new grade could strengthen private schools' hold on elite universities.

"Grade inflation in university entry requirements and the fact that A-level A* grades are disproportionately achieved in the independent and selective schools does increase the risk that the brightest disadvantaged young people may be squeezed out of the applicant pool for the most selective universities. Universities need to be aware of this when considering fair access."
[Quoted in Fears for state pupils as top universities insist on A* at A-level Guardian 02/08/2010]

This begs the whole question as to what is, and what is not, "fair access" to university. Whilst it might be "fair" to favour a university applicant from a Maintained sector school over an equally qualified one from an Independent School, I am not sure that it will ever be "fair" to take a less qualified one. At some point we have to recognise that the best are the best regardless of the sector in which they were educated.

If universities are going to persist in social engineering, they need to be open about so doing and their criteria for discriminating between candidates from different educational backgrounds need to be transparent and published. In time, there should be a degree of suspicion over any university that rejects the use of the A* as a discriminator between candidates.

Given that most institutions do not interview candidates and most say that they pay little regard to either the personal statement or the reference, then predicted or actual grades are the most important, if not sole, criterion for selection or rejection. If universities reject good candidates from Independent schools in favour of weaker candidates from the Maintained sector, I can foresee the situation where unsuccessful applicants with top A-level grades make legal challenges against those institutions which reject them. Indeed, I am not sure that we will ever get "fair access" to university until we have "blind" UCAS applications where the educational and social background of the applicant are not known to the institution considering the form.

The introduction of the A* at A-level is an opportunity to move towards an admission system that is based on merit - let us hope that the universities embrace it fully.

"More flexibility in the exams system": a double-edged sword?

The Coalition Government has committed itself "to create more flexibility in the exams system" [See The Coalition: our programme for government; 26 Schools]. I believe that any deregulation of the examination system should be used to drive up academic standards, rather than to create a vehicle for competition between examination boards.


Flexibility to stretch the brightest

In an effort to maintain academic standards at KS4, Independent Schools have migrated towards the International GCSEs [iGCSEs] over the past five years. That these schools have done this particularly in the core subjects of Maths, Science and English is evidence that these are the areas where the Labour Government's intervened most to dumb down the curriculum. The announcement that state school pupils will be able to sit is good news for both the Maintained and Independent Sectors.

The top State schools, especially the surviving State Grammars, have campaigned to be allowed to sit these more rigorous examinations, but were prevented from doing so by the previous Secretary of State, lest it highlight the deficiencies of the new GCSE specifications. Michael Gove, who is more open to acknowledging that Maintained sector schools can learn much from our world-class schools in the Independent Sector, has opened up the iGCSE to all.

It is good news, too, for Independent Schools. If we are to have a two-tier examination system of "more academic" iGCSEs and "less academic" GCSEs, it is well that that two-tier system transcends both the Independent and Maintained Sectors as it takes away any potential for discriminating against pupils from our sector, say, in University applications.


Flexibility to create new attractive products for the marketplace

Whilst some aspects of the deregulation of GCSEs are clearly welcome, but I am not sure that there should be a free-for-all. I am deeply concerned by the proposal from AQA that boys and girls could be able to sit different GCSEs.

The statement by Bill Alexander, AQA's director of curriculum and assessment, to the TES outlines the rationale:

“We could offer a route for boys that is very different to a route for girls. Girls tend to perform better with coursework while boys do better with end-of-year exams. So we are pursuing that in science to see if we could have an option in science where we might have a straightforward examination for boys but a possibility of having a coursework option for girls.”

Exams for boys, exams for girls TES 18/06/2010

But how his statement goes on is more revealing:

“We are looking to do something different where there is a need in the market.

“The current GCSE criteria don’t allow coursework, but if we have now got flexibility and freedom to develop alternative products then that is what we will want to use our expertise to produce.”

Here lies one of the key problems with the British examination system, namely that we have three Awarding Bodies who are in competition with each other. Exams have become "products" in the "market". Schools inevitably choose products that will improve their results. The way that our examination system is structured at present only serves to perpetuate the year-on-year grade inflation. I am not sure that we should be giving the Exam Boards greater flexibility to make exams any easier.

Can e-assessment maintain the "Gold Standard"?

On-screen testing has come a long way from the simple the automation of multiple choice questions. The next generation of GCSE questions that are presently under development by AQA open up new, exciting and innovative ways of examining young people.

The Technology Enabled Assessment for Learning (TEAL) team at AQA, working in partnership with btl, are harnessing the additional functionality of Web 2.0 to enable examiners to set totally different type of task to assess pupils. Questions employing interactive graphics and drag-and-drop technology enable the opportunity for candidates to demonstrate quite advanced mathematical, experimental and interpretative skills. Take the following science question for example: [click on image to enlarge]

[Image: Copyright AQA - used with permission]

In this question, candidates are required to make a scientific observation of this "virtual experiment" and then to "plot" the 30cm reading to the correct point on the graph. What these sample questions demonstrate is that onscreen testing has reached a sufficient level of development to allow for a complexity and range of questions that give scope for examiners to challenge the digital generation. The technology is now available for on-line testing to be as equally demanding as the paper examinations with which previous generations grappled and thus there is no reason why e-assessment itself should threaten the Gold Standard in KS4 testing. AQA have just posted some exemplar "future thinking" questions on their website. [I am grateful to AQA for giving me permission to use the image of the Photosynthesis experiment in this blogpost - the image remains the copyright of AQA]

e-Assessment - the case for the defence

It is not difficult to imagine the reaction of my colleagues in HMC and GSA, not to mention the national broadsheets, if the exam boards were to announce that all GCSEs would be conducted online.

e-Assessment has a bad name – the popular imagination associates it with low standards, indeed some would go so far as to see it as an active instrument in the dumbing of the exam system.

We have seen increasing automation of the examination system over the past ten years – online entries, online results, the scanning of scripts, onscreen marking, and even some online testing [AQA offer an e-Assessment version of GCSE science]. The move towards e-Assessment has been driven principally by efficiency and cost savings – the developments above make the whole examination process faster, better able to cope with increased capacity and at a cheaper unit cost. Important thought these factors are they should not be the drivers in this debate.

The fact is that e-Assessment is an established part of adult society, not only in Government departments with the Driving Theory and the UK Border Agency Life in the UK tests, but also as key part of professional training and assessment in aviation, financial services, medical education, fire training and in battlefield simulations for HM forces. It is anomalous that, as a society, we are willing for e-Assessment to play an important role in these vital and professional services, but are reticent about its place in mainstream education.

I believe that there is a strong educational case for e-Assessment that is based on innovative approaches both to teaching and learning and examinations. One of the greatest advantages of e-Assessment is that it is able to effect a shift from summative to formative assessment. Tests within interactive learning programmes are able to give immediate feedback to the learner and give opportunity to go back through one’s answers to learn from the mistakes.

In the same way, e-Assessment can do things that paper examinations can’t. For example it is possible to make examinations adaptive so that if a candidate does well in the early part of the test, they progress to higher level questions; and if they do poorly, then the questions get easier. Adaptive testing allows each candidate to find his or her level, which makes the whole examination process a better differentiator at each level, more meaningful and a more positive experience.

One of the greatest blocks on the move to e-Assessment is that the public is blinded by its preconceptions of what exams look like. Generations have sat in silence in rows in silence with pen and paper – and that image is etched on our brains. There is an element here of the grumpy sixth former about us all “we went through it, why shouldn’t they go through it – it didn’t do us any harm.”

Schools have a responsibility to prepare young people for the world that they are going to inhabit and not one of the past – and I am concerned about the dislocation of schools in general, and the examination hall in particular, from the world of work. e-Assessment is an important step to bridging this divide.

So what is so wrong with an elite?

Letter to the Daily Telegraph

Sir,
In nearly every area of life an elite based on quality is taken for granted, even encouraged. The millions who follow Premiership football each week have no problem with "elitism" - it is a given. So why has elitism has become a dirty word when it comes to education [Universities to shun new 'elitist' A* grades - Daily Telegraph 20/12/09]? Surely our top universities should need no encouragement to accept the best students, regardless of their social or educational background. All that the introduction of the A* at A-level is going to achieve is to highlight the injustice of Government intervention in the university entrance system.

Mark S Steed
Principal, Berkhamsted School
Berkhamsted, Herts

See also
Universities dismiss new top A-level as unfair to state pupils Times 20/12/09

e-Assessment - the battlelines are drawn

Today's publication of the second report of the Chief Regulator of Ofqual not only opened up the important debate about e-assessment but to some extent has signalled that this is the desired direction of travel.

Just so we know what we are talking about, the report defines e-assessment as:

For our purposes e-assessment is where the learner responds to questions or tasks on a computer. It does not necessarily mean that the computer carries out the assessment. ..... Nor do we use the term ‘e-assessment’ to mean the use of technology as a tool to support other aspects of the assessment process, such as on-screen marking or the standardisation of markers.

Standards in e-assessment Ofqual Website

The report touches on a number of key areas in this debate:

1. Cheating: "Care must be taken to ensure that a candidate cannot copy from a neighbour’s screen, make inappropriate use of the Internet or exchange information if the assessment runs over a number of days."
2. The number and length of test windows– the time during which candidates can take their assessment. "Is it better to have a longer time period or a number of single-day windows?"
3. School Technology infrastructure: "At present many test centres, and particularly schools, may not have the technology infrastructure available for all candidates, for a large examination to take an e-assessment at the same time."
4. Is "on-demand" testing, whereby the learner takes the assessment when it is most appropriate, desirable or even essential?
5. Most importantly, can an e-assessment framework be produced which avoids distorting the curriculum merely to make it easier to assess on a computer? "Whatever its nature, assessment must cope with all the richness and diversity of the teaching and learning experience."

I believe that there are good educational and social reasons to make significant changes to our public examination system, so I welcome this report, but my fear is that the agenda outlined above does not go far enough. I think that it is desirable that we move to an examination system where pupils have access to the Internet, at least for some of their examinations. There is an obvious parallel here to the debate about calculators in Mathematics exams in the 1980s, the tedious use of slide rules and log tables has gone and the advent of calculators actually meant that pupils can get on with doing more mathematics. Thus, I am intrigued by the reference in the report [quoted above] to the "inappropriate use of the Internet", as this does offer a ray of hope that there will be appropriate use of the Internet in examinations.

It does strike me as rather counter-intuitive that at the very time that schools are considering moving away from the traditional "ICT suite" and are beginning to embrace the idea of pupils using their own small mobile devices in classrooms to support their learning, that we are going to have to invest in some form of fixed-desk infrastructure for examinations.

Further Information
PDF version of the report (Ofqual)
Pen and paper exams 'could be axed' (Daily Telegraph)
Forget pen and paper, it’s time to switch to on-screen GCSEs (Times)
Are public exams entering the twenty-first century? (Blog post 1 May 2009)
QCA efutures website

Minister: independent students’ success due to ‘narrow focus’

Now I've heard it all!

Responding to last week’s A-level results and the subsequent debate over the gap in performance between state and private schools, education minister, Iain Wright has claimed that the reason independent schools achieve such high grades at A-level is the “narrow focus” of their curriculum compared with that of state schools.

“Private schools have a much narrower range; the choice is much narrower.

“There is a much broader suite of subjects and qualifications available in maintained schools and colleges. In that respect, the maintained sector are doing just as well, if not better.”

If narrow focus there be, the recent public examination results would suggest that it is on excellence and top grades, something of which I as the head of an independent school am happy to be criticised.

Mr Wright, "Go and Spin no more!"

Times Online - Minister: independent students’ success due to ‘narrow focus’