As we await the results of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams next week, it seems like a good time to ask this question of our assessment system: how do we offer tests worth teaching towards?
It’s an important question for all sorts of reasons, and it brings back vivid memories of my own efforts as a teacher to make sure students did as well as possible in their SQA exams.
I became a marker for every possible exam in my subject (I taught history and modern studies) to get inside the heads of the examiners, find out exactly what they were looking for and then make sure that my classes were absolutely prepared to meet those demands.
I was generally successful in that goal. My classes consistently got good results, almost inevitably performed beyond their often-dismal preliminary exam results, regularly exceeded expectations and achieved what I saw as success.
And yet, there were a couple of problems with my approach.
‘Soul-destroying’ exams fixation
The first was that anything that I considered to be good teaching - engaging lessons, thought-provoking sessions, stimulating content, wider experiences - became a fading memory upon exam season.
The replacement was exam technique, preparation for questions I had “spotted” (to use the argot of the day), revision and practice. It was soul-destroying and certainly made little contribution to the wider development of my students as contributors, citizens or human beings.
The second was that the success of some students helped take them into higher or further education, where they struggled badly without the coaching and support on which they had become dependent; I was very good at getting them over the hurdles, but did very little to help them finish the race.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this was, or is, a unique situation. As a director of children’s services or head of education, I became very aware of students with superb Higher results who were failing at university or dropping into courses with less demanding entry qualifications than those they had initially chosen.
I am also very conscious of the whole concern about the transition in Scotland from the broad general education (BGE) to the senior phase. There is something very Scottish about that whole discussion, a sort of “You’ll have had your broad general education; now for the serious stuff”. One wonders why anyone would talk in such terms.
Are young people not entitled to, or capable of, engaging with the specifics of maths or sciences or any other subject until they reach some stage of hormonal development? Have we no ambitions to develop the spirit of the Enlightenment, that wider engagement with the world, after they have passed 16? Should students not be making links and connections between subjects after a certain age?
Does BGE last longer than we think?
In more basic terms, if students are still doing several subjects plus core PE and PSHE (personal, social and health education), possible vocational options and a range of extracurricular activities, how is that not a “broad general education”?
The real dividing line would seem to be that, in the earlier phase, we focus less on the exams than we do once they move to the senior phase. In other words, we place more emphasis on teaching to the tests. The frequent suggestion that we need to begin that earlier is further evidence that my approach as a teacher is still not an uncommon one.
I think that the reality is that “teaching to the tests” will not stop as long as tests exists in the way they do now - if they are the gateway to future opportunities and if accountability is rooted in attainment.
For me, that means that we should think about changing the tests. I have no difficulty with the idea of teaching towards a good test, one which assesses skills, understanding and the other elements that we claim are important in our education. However, it should also be a test that is more than a mere hurdle and should reveal something about the student’s potential to complete their race, whatever that may be.
One challenge we face is that exams should never feel like an ambush. Teachers and students need to know what expectations they will have to meet. Otherwise, exams become the handmaiden of conformity and stasis.
Way back in the days of Standard Grade development, we had an answer for this. For the new multidisciplinary courses, we set pilot exams. That gave teachers absolute clarity about what would be asked of their students. This offered reassurance in a way that all the verbiage around Curriculum for Excellence never has; we have reams of “experiences and outcomes”, an extensive library of documentation and a plethora of presentations, yet people still feel lost.
‘Overwhelmed’ teachers need clarity
When teachers feel overwhelmed, as they do now, they need clarity and certainty and they need to know that any efforts that they make will be worthwhile. Good, sound, broad assessments could lead us in that direction. Assessment is the keystone of educational reform; we need to get that right and we need to do it now.
As we wait to see what the Scottish government’s upcoming response to the Hayward recommendations is going to be, along with all of the other reviews that remain pending, maybe we should find space for exams that reward what we claim to value in education - and which tell us something about pupils’ potential.
David Cameron is an education consultant based in Scotland who has previously worked as both a local authority director of children’s services and as a head of education. He tweets @realdcameron
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