Why I can’t put my faith in exams anymore

Are handwritten examinations fit for purpose? It is a question I have often asked myself.

To me, the experiences of the past 12 months have resolved my thinking: pupils cramming for a single big test at the end of the academic year, trying to work out what will be on the exam paper and then writing reams of handwritten answers in a silent exam hall is past its sell-by date.

Instead, we need to develop a focus on what a 21st-century assessment framework ought to look like.

A long process

In the most recent school that I led, I often asked this question: in our primary school, how do we expect our students in Year 1 to be assessed when they reach Year 13? 

Even in our secondary school, are we to have end-of-term examinations for our Year 7 students in the way the Year 11, 12 and 13 have mock examinations? Should we not be testing skills as much as content?

What the pandemic has given us is an opportunity to think about a reform of the “end of secondary school” system.   

For example, we know from advances in neuroscience that we develop at different rates physiologically and cognitively, and yet are expected to sit exams at the same numerical age

Tough questions

So, perhaps we ought to start by asking when and how to assess the knowledge of our pupils – it’s a lofty idea but would it not create a fairer system?

And how do we assess them? Perhaps in a way that reflects the modern economy and infrastructure: one that uses technology and online tools?

After all, online assessments, including multiple choice questions, are used in many key sectors, such medical schools, theory tests for driving and online skills, including those that many teachers will remember taking on initial teacher training in the past two decades.

Perhaps instant online “exams”, whose results can be given on the spot, would also remove the need for a two-month delay before students find out how they’ve done.

It would then enable students considering university to make choices after the results and avoid the predicted grade bias that the admissions service, UCAS, is surrounded by – a move that is now gaining momentum in the UK. 

Let’s value skills

Furthermore, in addition to testing learning theory online, we ought to think more deeply about how we evaluate the skills wrongfully labelled as “soft”: collaboration, communication, social and emotional skills – these add tremendous value to young people and their future employers.

This is why the old-fashioned exam system seems so out of date. It does not capture anything other than a single snapshot of a student on a specific day.

We need to do more to understand the pupils as a whole within their assessment. Their academic level but also their life experience and skills.

For example, compare the challenge of being a young carer at home with that of a privileged student’s gap year of “charity” work: Both would develop the same strengths of empathy, strong emotional intelligence, and the social responsibility, commitment and resilience, yet currently those with the “gap year” on their CVs appear to shine brighter than those unable to participate in such an experience.

I know this is not an easy idea to turn into reality or something that can be changed overnight. But we must challenge the status quo, especially when, in the pandemic, its limitations are there for all to see.

It is time for an assessment system that enables school leavers to develop the capabilities that, to quote Javier Arguello of COGx, allow them to “learn, unlearn and relearn” as the world changes rapidly around them.

It’s clear from the year we have just had that it’s a skill always worth possessing.

This article was published originally on TES on 2 February 2021.