In January 2022, we resumed workshops for STAGE 3 of APiC’s COVID-19 Project with Children and Young People. Supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS), #ScotYouthandCOVID3 has recalled the Young Consultants who participated in our original two stages of the project.
Last week, we reported an overview of the findings of our last workshop with our original Young Consultants. You can read more about the project and the workshop task here. Yesterday, we also looked specifically at what Young Consultants would change around the curriculum and its delivery. You can read these findings here.
In this blog, we discuss what our original Young Consultants think should change about Assessments in Scotland. One more blog this week will then explore their thoughts on:
- Extra Curricular Activities
- Transitions, from primary to secondary, and beyond
The remainder of this blog is worded in the first person, to represent their voice on the important ideas they raised.
Fair Assessments
We welcome the national re-evaluation of the assessment system. However, we also have concerns this will not include a holistic consideration of all aspects of the Scottish education system, including the purpose, principles, and the approach to the curriculum we have proposed. We believe it is important to start with these, and then ask what assessment framework is most appropriate to them, and that it is risky to just look at assessments by themselves.
We think the primary goal of assessment is to enable us to achieve and demonstrate our potential, not just to monitor, compare and control our school performance.
We believe that emphasis on the latter means assessments have become too onerous and unfair for pupils and teachers, and it is interfering with our education and defeating the primary goal. There needs to be genuine attempts to rebuild trust in the institutions that assess education in Scotland.
We appreciate these are not easy problems to solve, but believe it is essential that our needs and experiences form part of any solution, and propose this includes the following:
- Assessment scores should be principally about our improvement. More and more, we are taking assessments where questions have no detailed breakdown on how answers will be marked. This means we have no clear idea of what constitutes a good answer in exams, or of why we have scored high or low on an answer. Therefore, there is no structure or route to challenge unfair marks. This is essential feedback, without which we cannot identify our strengths or where we need to improve, and assessments do not serve their primary goal.
- Assessments should be a measure of our ability, not of our circumstances. Assessments need to respond better to particular challenges which can disadvantage us compared to other schools and pupils. If they do not take circumstances beyond our control into consideration, then they do not fairly represent our ability or proficiency, and this can prejudice our ability to progress. This can have far-reaching effects on our lives!
For example, in one of our schools, we are now down to a single English teacher when we used to have around six. Some pupils also have an illness or disability which makes the specific context of exams difficult, despite having good knowledge of the subject.
If we have been learning a subject primarily through supply teachers – which often requires us to be effectively teaching ourselves – then we are automatically disadvantaged in assessments if we sit the same exam in the same way as those that have had the same teacher all the time. Equally, it is also unfair in schools where there have been high incidences of COVID-19 among staff and pupils. The principle of fairness in assessments needed to be flexible enough to take into account such circumstances, while maintaining the integrity of exam results.
Assessing True Learning
Our experience of assessments has caused us to think sometimes that our education system is now more about the exams – regardless of the cost to our motivation and wellbeing – than it is about learning. This has been especially so since COVID-19, where the requirements have been so stressful and onerous. Sometimes, we were given new work to learn for exams days before they took place. Timetabling was so chock full of exams some weeks that they allowed no time for revision. The allocated time for assessments is also very short, measuring speed under pressure more than genuine ability and understanding!
We felt that smaller exams or an element of continuous assessment across a course, spread out, might be a better way of examining subjects. Earlier (supported) revision sessions could also help, so that we don’t end up doing it all just before exams. We therefore propose the following principle:
- Assessments should be a measure of our learning, not endurance. Our education should primarily be about preparation for full participation and contribution to society, and yet it feels like much time in the senior phase of secondary school is spent focusing on prelim exams rather than true learning. Sometimes, we sit so many preliminary exams that we lose motivation for learning in that subject. We get more time, in terms of study leave, for the real exams. That’s great and really helps, but our very full schedules of prelims earlier in the year takes a toll on our wellbeing and motivation.
What’s Next?
In the next blog, we’ll report on specific findings around how Young Consultants would change around extra-curricular activities, and transitions. Tune in tomorrow to find out more!
We will also be convening workshops with one more seldom heard group over the next month, as well as reconvening our original Young Consultants to discuss our findings. If you are interested in finding out more about this project, or getting on the mailing list to receive a link to our Scotland-wide survey later in the year, please get in touch with Dr Jenny Wood at jenny.wood@aplaceinchildhood.org.
We will be posting further updates on this project as we go, so follow us on Twitter for updates. We will also be writing a report at the end of the project, to chronicle our journey to the Children and Young People’s Manifesto for Rights in Recovery.
Read about wave one and wave two of #ScotYouthandCOVID here.