Assessment at 16

Keith Selkirk

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000044690
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What students are deemed to have achieved when they are sixteen is the measure of how successful or otherwise their progress through the system of compulsory education has been. And yet despite the importance of the process there has been no clear consensus about how best to assess students at sixteen. The various formal examinations which have been tried have now largely been superseded by the GCSE: a common system of examining at sixteen. Originally published in 1988, the book discusses the development of this system, its application to the main subject areas of the curriculum and some of its innovative aspects from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. In addition, it also looks at the broader aspects of assessment of pupils at the age of sixteen and how we can give a more rounded indication of their achievements and abilities by the use of profiles and records of achievement.

1

The Development of Examining at Sixteen

Keith Selkirk

INTRODUCTION

It could be argued that to commence a book on assessment with a chapter on examining is to mislead the reader about the nature of assessment. This is not the intention; assessment is not just about examining in the traditional sense of a written examination. However this book is about the assessment of pupils who are 16 years old and inevitably a large part of the work of assessment at that age will be in terms of formal examinations of one type or another. Most of the first two parts will be concerned with such examinations and we begin therefore with their development, and some of the general problems associated with them. Later in the book we shall examine some of the other aspects of assessment at that age as it occurs in England and Wales today.

Of course many of the problems of assessment remain problems whatever the age of the pupils concerned, so that much of what is said in this book applies to other ages with varying degrees of relevance. Sixteen is, however, a crucial age because it is the end of formal education. Short of such political improbabilities as the raising of the school leaving age beyond 16 or the re-introduction of conscription for both sexes, it is likely to be the last opportunity to test the whole population in any way, and it is certainly the last chance of using a single system of examining to test a large proportion of the population.

At present it is indeed the only age at which the whole population is assessed; when, as it were, we assess the nation's stock of human beings. In a way it is therefore an age at which we take a census of the nation's potential for the future. The word future is important because it emphasises that we are not just assessing the achievements of the pupil from the past, but we are also attempting to predict the achievements of the years to come. In spite of much talk about the need to retrain the workforce, the fact remains that at 16 we are deciding the future lives of a large proportion of the population on the basis of our assessment of them. There is no need to be defensive about this, we have to do it sometime and on some basis, and one of the aims of assessment is to make this basis as sound as possible. Assessment at 16 is, therefore, not just a summary of the past, but a prediction of the future.

Of course, we should not attempt to be too rigid about our decisions, this is one of the great lessons of the history of assessment. The demise of the 11+ examination (still remaining in a few areas of England) was in a large part due to the realisation that it was not possible to sort out children into categories rigidly at the age of 11. This is the basis of the opposition to the current (1987) proposals to test all children at the ages of 7, 11 and 14. Nor is it possible at the age of 16, and we should not forget this. Nevertheless in the absence of unlimited resources, we have to make decisions about employment or in some cases about future academic careers, and we must do this as fairly and as accurately as we can, at the same time allowing opportunities to change course for those for whom decisions turn out to have been mistaken. The end of formal schooling is the most appropriate time for this to take place.

TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

Written examinations are not the only types of assessment, one of the features of recent years has been the attempt to spread the forms of assessment more widely. We therefore have practical examinations, oral examinations, continuous assessment, coursework and so on, all of which form part of our modern battery of techniques of formal examining. We shall examine some of the particular problems associated with these later in the book, and also to some extent in dealing with specific subject areas. But we are also attempting to spread the net of assessment yet more widely to those aspects of pupils which cannot be assessed by formal examinations, whether written or otherwise. The difficult problems associated with profiles and records of achievement are considered in some detail. All that need be said at this stage is that to confine a consideration of such assessments to the less able pupils is to destroy their value; such qualities as reliability, perseverance, and ambition are as important for the university undergraduate as for the unskilled manual worker. With the introduction of the new General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) for the bulk of 16 year old pupils, we must not relegate this aspect of assessment to those at the bottom end of the ability range alone.

Our children are assessed in other formal ways as well. We shall not be greatly concerned with these in this book, but they do have lessons to teach us. One feature of recent years has been the great growth of graded tests in schools for various purposes apart from the area of academic studies. Tests for swimming and gymnastics are widely used and have played an important part in the establishment of the popularity of these sports among school children today. As well as the purely physical field, where the intention has been to test virtually all the ability range, these have also been used for specialist purposes in the performing arts, where indeed they began. For example in ballet, and, above all in music, such tests have been built up into a highly structured and valuable way of assessing practical performance and technical competence. On a more elementary level, proficiency tests such as those for cycling and which demand mastery of a skill have been developed, in this case a parallel for adults is the driving test.

These tests are usually voluntary, and perhaps this accounts for their widespread success. There is a great temptation to transfer their success to the academic field without noticing that their aims are different. Certainly one suspects that their voluntary nature accounts not only for their success but also largely for the lack of stigma attached to not having taken them. On the other hand failure is often felt more strongly because of the high success rate.

ACADEMIC AND VOCATIONAL EXAMINATIONS

Examinations in Britain developed from two strands which might be termed the academic and the vocational. They are not completely separate, but their separate genesis is clear and there is still the distinction, though this is now disappearing and will probably diminish still further at the age of 16 with the introduction of GCSE. The academic strand can be traced back over two centuries to the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, where in the latter half of the eighteenth century, written examinations were introduced to replace the traditional oral examination of the University. Oxford University took a step ahead in 1800 with the Oxford University Examinations Statute, which introduced written examinations as tests of ability. However we must wait until later in the nineteenth century for their introduction to schools.

Vocational examinations developed throughout the nineteenth century beginning with the Society of Apothecaries in 1815, the intention being to ensure qualification, either at the start of a course of training or at entry to a trade or profession. Such examinations assumed widespread importance in the second half of the nineteenth century as ability rather than patronage began to determine careers. The Civil Service Examination probably became the most important of these, and the multiplicity of examinations became one of the problems of schools at that period, special classes being formed in some cases in order to cram pupils for them. Eventually one of the purposes of the introduction of the School Certificate was to replace this multiplicity of examinations, and one of the difficulties in establishing it was to persuade the various professional bodies to use the new examination to exempt candidates from their own examinations. We see a modern echo of this problem in the reluctance of Oxford and Cambridge Universities to use 'A' level examinations as the sole formal qualification for entry to their respective colleges.

One of the continuing threads of the last two centuries in the history of education is this tendency of examinations to proliferate to serve specific ends as education expands to serve the needs of an increasingly complex society. This proliferation ultimately results in a new examination to combine the purposes of the old in an effort to cut the Gordian knot which confronts the schools in coping with the situation. The replacement of the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and the General Certificate of Education Ordinary level (GCE 'O' level) by GCSE is but the latest manifestation of this tendency, and we are seeing further development in this direction with the efforts to extend GCSE to the whole, or almost the whole, of the ability range. At present this seems a more likely outcome than the abandonment of the whole idea of examining at 16, (as has almost happened with examining at 11 for entry to grammar schools), and which seems to be the only other rational alternative.

The development of a system of vocational examinations was begun by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) who introduced their examinations from 1854. The system was intended for the lower social classes and from an early stage until 1882 the examinations were barred to entrants from classical schools, that is to middle-class, academic pupils. There was also a lower age limit of 15 on entrants. By the early years of the twentieth century these examinations were firmly established and they continue to play a role in the examination system of Britain though often now in Further Education. In 1873 the RSA began examinations in technical subjects, but in 1878 these were taken over by the newly formed City and Guilds of London Institute (CGLI). The important subsequent contributions of these to the development of technical education in this country are largely outside the scope of this book.

Also in 1854, the College of Preceptors examination was commenced- as an academic examination run by teachers. Previously the College, which was founded in 1846 had been examining teachers themselves. These examinations are again still in use today, though no longer to a great extent in schools. Their failure compared with the success of the university examining boards has been in part due to their lack of recognition by the Board of Education (formed in 1899), and partly due to the belief that their academic integrity could not be guaranteed in the way that that of the university controlled boards could be. In some ways this has been a great pity in the development of examining, and we had to await the CSE before a teacher-run examination could begin to attain real credibility. Indeed properly developed the College of Preceptors might have become the Teaching Council which is only now under discussion, and certainly the reliance on the universities for the credibility of our examining system has been one factor in delaying the professional recognition of teachers in this country. However for nearly 100 years the university examining boards were not just the chief contributors to formal school examinations at 16; for a large portion of this time they were almost the only major contributors. It is to the formation and development of these boards that we must now turn in our rapid survey of the history of examining in England and Wales.

THE UNIVERSITY EXAMINING BOARDS

Once again we must go back to the 1850s for the formation of an examining organisation. The impetus came from the need to provide for the middie-class grammar school what the Royal Society of Arts was doing for the lower-class mechanics' institute, and the RSA seems to have encouraged this development. The intention was to improve the standards of the grammar schools rather in the way the standards of the universities had been improved by the introduction of examinations for degrees at an earlier date. The Bath and West of England Society led the way with a competitive examination held in Exeter in 1857 for seniors (up to 18 years old) and also for juniors (up to 15). This examination was intended as an experiment to show the way, today we would call it a feasibility trial. Such was the interest attracted by it that the following year both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, as well as Durham, organised 'Local' examinations.

Generally these were along similar lines, though the junior examination at Cambridge was from the first for those up to 16; the Oxford examination did not come into line for some years. This age limit tended to make the examination one for the upper-middle classes, since those in the lower-middle classes tended to leave school at the age of 15. Surprisingly girls were admitted to the Cambridge examination as early as 1863 (with private arrangements) and 1865 publicly; they were admitted to the Oxford examination in 1870. The Taunton Commission (1868) gave these examinations guarded approval, though they were regarded as too expensive and too difficult. It was suggested that whole classes of pupils needed to be tested, rather than just selected pupils who would be given special tuition. These two bodies have continued to the present day as the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations and the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Meanwhile the independent schools had begun to reform themselves in the face of increasing government interest in education. The newly-formed Headmasters' Conference encouraged the setting up by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge of the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board to set examinations for schools on a common syllabus. Examinations for 18 year old pupils were set from 1873, and for 16 year olds in 1884. Thus arose the apparent anomaly of an 'Oxford Board', a 'Cambridge Board' and an 'Oxford and Cambridge Board'. The Central Welsh Board was established in 1896 as a result of the rather stronger government involvement in Welsh Education at this period, and until the First World War followed a rather different line; in 1948 it became a part of the Welsh Joint Education Committee.

But there is another strand to the early history of the university examining boards; the problem of qualification for university entrance or matriculation. At the turn of the century, London University went through a period of re-organisation and in 1902 a School Leaving Certificate of matriculation standard was set. For 60 years before this, however, matriculation examinations had been set which were also taken by those who did not, in fact, intend to proceed to the University. In 1903, a Junior School Certificate was set at a level below that of matriculation; pupils had to have been taught for two years in schools which had been inspected by the University. A feature of this examination was the greater involvement of school teachers in the actual examining. Thus began the University Entrance and Schools Examinations Council of the University of London.

Also in 1903, the Joint Matriculation Board (usually abbreviated to JMB) began operations to continue the earlier work of the Victoria University, and to provide a matriculation examination for the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and from 1905 of Sheffield also. Special examinations for school leavers were instituted in 1910. Later, in 1916, Birmingham University, which had earlier set its own matriculation examinations also joined. Bristol University ran its own examinations for many years, and became the smallest of the university examination boards. In 1957 it was strengthened by the addition of the Universities of Reading and Southampton, and became the Southern Universities Joint Board for School Examinations. Later the University of Exeter made a highly appropriate addition in view of the early association of Exeter with school examinations, as well as the Universities of Bath and Surrey. The historic Durham University Schools Examination Board, which was the eighth of the university boards, and was also a small one, closed down from 1964.

The formation of the final GCE examining board had its roots in the technical examinations which have already been mentioned. The Associated Examining Board began examining in 1955 and was started under the administration of the City and Guilds of London Institute, at first to develop the examination of more technical subjects and later to examine a full range of subjects. It was fully recognised by 1959. Naturally its candidates were originally drawn mainly from technical colleges, but as the years went by, more and more schools began to use its services also.

WHO IS EXAMINED: PUPILS OR SCHOOLS?

It is normally assumed that examinations examine the pupils who take them, and often forgotten that they also examine the teachers by whom they are taught and the schools in which they are taught. Many of the early examinations were linked with the inspection of the schools whose pupils took them, and one of the chief aims of the early proponents of examinations was the raising of standards in schools. Unfortunately the use of assessment to attain such ends can have great dangers. The introduction of payment by results for teachers in the Government's Revised Code of 1862 was one of the most disastrous episodes in the educational history of this country. It led teachers into formal teaching styles geared to the examination syllabus, and to a neglect of those subjects which were not examined as teachers concentrated on earning the government grant. The revised code came to an end in 1897. Examinations do have adverse effects as well as beneficial ones, and this is but one of them which care must be taken to avoid.

Teachers do need feedback about their performance, and one of the few independent ways in which this can be obtained is by external examinations. Unfortunately examination can only test a part of what is taught, and it can most easily test rote learning. We are developing ways of testing other outcomes of learning, but factual recall is always the temptation of examiners since it is the easiest thing to test. The popularity of quiz shows on television and the importance attached by the general public to such titles as 'Brain of Britain' bear witness to the general belief that intelligence is to be equated with recall of facts and particularly with speed of recall under stressful conditions. It must not be forgotten, either, that there are outcomes of education other than learning which are also important.

Today schools must publish their examination results so that the public can judge for themselves their success. Parental choice will then, unless great care is taken, have similar effects to payment by results 100 years ago, forcing teachers into the situation where they will be judged by the examination successes of their pupils. The danger is that success depends on many more factors than are under the control of the individual school or teacher, and even experienced educational researchers have difficulty in teasing out all these factors. Parents, forever striving for the best for their children, will take these results at face value, without looking deeper; and who can blame them?

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

The period between the 1902 Education Act and the First World War (1914-18) saw a concentration on the establishment of government funding in the secondary schools, and the laying down of the school system which was to continue until the 1944 Act came into operation. The proliferation of secondary school examinations which has already been mentioned became a more and more pressing burden on these schools, and before the War began discussion had already begun by the Board of Education (the forerunner of the Ministry of Education and the Department of Education and Science) about the future of the secondary examination system. The War itself caused action to be delayed, but in 1917 the Secondary School Examinations Council was formed to advise the Board. Initally just over half the members were divided between the teachers and the local authorities, and the remainder were from the universities, all their examining boards being represented except the Central Welsh Board, whose representation was delayed for a few years. Thus the eight university boards obtained a powerful central role in secondary school examining, which was unchallenged until the advent of the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) in the mid-1960s.

Two examinations were proposed, to be taken normally at 16 and 18 years of age, of which only the former need concern us here in any detail. The examinations were intended to be taken by whole classes rather than i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The Development of Examining at Sixteen
• 2. GCSE: The National Criteria
• 3. The Work of an Examining Group
• 4. Definitions and Difficulties
• 5. English
• 6. The Humanities
• 7. Foreign Languages
• 8. The Arts
• 9. Mathematics
• 10. Science
• 11. Craft, Design and Technology
• 12. Objective Testing
• 13. Project and Coursework
• 14. Practical Work
• 15. Pupil Profiles
• 16. Records of Achievement
• Endpiece
• Appendix 1. Abbreviations
• Appendix 2. Examining groups for the GCSE
• Bibliography
• Index