Exam-ageddon - Reflections post-Ofqual

Well – after not blogging for a while I've been inspired (or more accurately, depressed) into writing by the release of the latest OFQUAL report on the English GCSE fiasco/debacle/super-storm/apocalypse or whatever we now call it. Reading the report in full gives a distinctly different impression to the semi-hysterical response it received in the media, particularly related to the issue of who, or what, is to blame. Repeatedly, the report places blame on a combination of two key factors: poor exam design, and a system of accountability which is narrow and excessively focused on grades at one borderline of one subject. This combination means that the system fails, mainly because it generates too much pressure on schools and teachers to achieve certain numbers with certain kids, leading to the sort of distortions and mayhem we've seen this summer.

So is it really such a poor exam design? I'm with Ofqual on this. As they have rightly identified, these English courses are a bit of a nightmare in some important ways – chronically over-complicated to deliver and administrate and a wearying relentless focus on high-stakes summative assessment, with the resultant experience of GCSE English aptly summarised by someone (can't remember who) as 'an anxious stagger between controlled assessments'. And how flawed controlled assessment has turned out to be – David Didau picks up on some of the main reasons why in his post Controlled Assessment and Why I Hate It, citing factors such as the way that CA's serve to suck the formative assessment out of KS4, the excessive pace of the course meaning that there is little time or capacity for students to improve or craft their work, the classroom time wasted in sitting and taking the damn things, the problems created by having to catch up kids who miss it, the fact that the 'rules' – and I use that term with extreme caution given the conflicting and shifting guidance we've had from exam boards – are so open to interpretation etc etc.

So far so annoying - how did an exam design which is recognised as flawed by Ofqual (and certainly by many of the teachers I know) ever get to be approved and implemented? And now, in an audacious late flourish of incompetence, we learn that THEY COULDN'T EVEN GET IT TOGETHER TO MODERATE THE THINGS ACCURATELY ANYWAY!!! When submitting controlled assessment last year, my colleagues and I felt simultaneously anxious that my marks were too high AND that they were too low! I turned away a student who asked me a question about Shakespeare IN THE DINNER QUEUE because they were half way through a controlled assessment and I didn't know if it was allowed! Our KS4 leader developed a strong personal relationship with the (always very personable) team on the English Hotline thing at our exam board because she rang them every other day to check on what was permitted – early on we asked if we were allowed to project key words during CA sessions and they said NO, but then we asked if we were allowed to have key word displays on the wall and they said YES WE COULD!!! WHERE'S THE SENSE IN THAT!!! I apologise, by the way, for the sudden and regrettable influx of capitalisation and exclamation-marking into this piece; the fact is that two years of screaming frustration are cathartically vomming their way out of my consciousness and I clearly don't have the control of language needed to cope. A similar phenomenon happened with some First World War soldiers, unable to find the words to express their horror – perhaps like them I should turn to poetry... some haiku?

Controlled Assessment!
Born of poor exam design;
whose idea was that?

Or

Ofqual, our friendly

regulatory body

says CA is CAck.

Or

Poor exam design?

Try to notice that before

you make us teach it.

Nope, I don't feel any better, so looks like it's Craiglockhart for me, which would be funny were it not that the stress teachers have felt in being responsible for this way of doing things is real and considerable, and has caused genuine damage to well-being.

Fortunately, English teachers are resilient and hardy folk, and can cope with a degree of stress, but at times the anxiety generated by implementing these courses has seemed excessive. It's certainly affected my own sleep and got into my dreams on a couple of occasions; once I dreamt of wandering around the school with my CA-bound class, unable to find which classroom we were supposed to be in, whilst an OFSTED inspector trailed disapprovingly after us... I wasn't wholly displeased however; in truth I'm often underwhelmed and a little concerned at the lack of narrative complexity in my dreams. Recently, I dreamt of playing cricket for England - now doesn't that strike you as a bit of a simplistic and juvenile scenario for my subconscious to unravel? Surely a grown man might expect to be a little more psychologically interesting than that? Especially as I played a solid but unspectacular innings and only scored 24. But, mindful of Charlie Brooker's memorable view that listening to others discussing their dreams is 'so boring that it almost qualifies as a physical assault', I will press on.

So where does the report leave us? Well, same place we always were – in classrooms, responsible for the learning of the kids in front of us. It's clear that these courses are on their way out anyway, so we have a couple of more years where we just have to continue teaching what Ofqual regard as a 'poor exam design', striving to do the best we can for the students and ourselves. My own classes are set 5s, and I enjoyed and connected with John Tomsett's post on teaching low attainers at GCSE – it's available here and gives a convincing and humane account of sensible approaches and principles to take on a day to day basis. Some of the other approaches we are taking include:

1. Focusing on doing the most important bits as well as we can
   For us, this means focusing on two connected areas which evidence and experience suggest make the most difference for these groups: feedback and direct instruction. With feedback, we are aiming to:
   - be precise, giving question by question feedback on mocks / exam practice, mail merging data from Excel onto student feedback sheets which can then be given to students / parents/ tutors / mentors etc
   Sample mocks marking from Cherwelllearning
   
   
   - follow feedback up, by having elearning / other resources available so if students know that they aren't much good at, for example, the question where they have to write about use of language, we have quality resources that we can direct students to use, and monitor their engagement with
   
   
   -be whole school, using a 'Ten Mark Challenge' approach, incorporating some of the worst punning to be found anywhere in British schools, where students are encouraged to find a minimum ten marks of improvement (out of 80) between their mocks and their real exam. We'll publicise this with tutors, parents, mentors etc and have posters around the school – the idea is that anyone might ask a student 'where are your ten marks coming from' and would be able to expect a decent answer.
   
   

   10 mark challenge final from Cherwelllearning

   
   

To provide high-quality direct instruction we'll aim to:

- teach decent lessons in the first place, obviously, with timely bouts of instruction / modelling, alongside more creative approaches and strong discipline.

- store the most important bits of direct instruction on video so students can gain flexible access to that information and teaching. Of course it's easy enough to 'directly instruct' in a classroom; it's much harder to get kids to stay engaged and focused on that instruction – elearning is a way we provide a back up so that when students haven't grasped key ideas, or feedback shows specific needs, we have the resource there for them (more on the wonders of elearning for direct instruction on a previous post here)

2) Teach Single English. Now if anything could be said to represent a silver lining around the dark, forbidding cloud of recent events, it's been enjoying the freedom to teach the Single English course. The principle of doing less, but doing it better seems very apt for modern schools, and the SE course is a good way to achieve it. Choosing this course means that, at a stroke, there is significantly increased time for each aspect - far from being a 'dumbing down' option, it actually means that we have the ability to do things properly; to read texts more fully, to dwell on areas that need improvement, to do a piece of assessment and then, if it's not very good, having another go later on (WITH A DIFFERENT TITLE, CHEAT-POLICE). Like lots of schools, we've done this with our lower attaining students, but I can't see what it's not an option for all, allowing teachers the freedom to teach widely and thoroughly, and giving students more room to fail and learn... Of course they get one less GCSE, but if the pay-off is that we re-claim KS4 for learning, and provide a much richer, powerful experience, teaching Lit and Lang, then what's the problem? Think of the amazing stuff we could do with top sets, providing a proper preparation for A Level... And we could stop giving great wodges of money to exam boards to spend on, erm, not being able to moderate, and spend it on, well, you know, books and stuff.

3) Get parents in. At a previous school, we had a 'Back to School' evening for parents, where they came in, had some food and we did some revision with them. We'll aim to replicate that this year, through carouselling kids and parents around for workshop 'mock lessons' on key areas of the GCSE, using kids to deliver bits of lessons – basically try to have a bit of a laugh and end up with parents knowing how exactly they can help their kids to achieve.

4)Practice. It's obvious that one of the reasons that students underachieve in English is that they just haven't done enough preparation – the two hour fifteen minute exam is quite an ask, and we need to make sure that they've done plenty of practice questions etc. I'm thinking with mine of some sort of 100,000 word challenge – trying to identify a number where we can say to them – if you write this many words in your English book in year 11, you'll do well. I think it was Andre Agassi's father who worked on the principle that if you hit one million tennis balls a year, you'll end up pretty handy at tennis – I'm interested in exploring how far this applies to writing, and how we could package it to kids.

5) Energy, optimism, patience, resilience, hope, belief. And, in light of everything that's happened with English GCSE recently, a sense of perspective and a determination to keep the faith, to believe that despite all the political wrangling that gets in the way what we do is important for kids and important for the health and happiness of our society, and (try to) keep smiling...