Teachers may be able to create their own test papers to assess GCSE and A-level students this year.
Ofqual and the Department for Education’s two-week consultation on how exam students will be assessed this year, published today, proposes that exam boards provide teachers with external papers, which they could use as part of their overall assessment of students.
But the consultation asks teachers, students and parents whether it should be compulsory for students to sit papers provided by exam boards, and suggests teachers could use papers created by themselves or their school instead to assess students.
GCSEs 2021:
“If teachers do not use the exam board set papers, or even where they do, they should use additional ways to assess students and to gather evidence of the standard at which their students are performing,” the consultation says.
GCSEs and A levels 2021: Teachers providing their own test papers
“The exam boards would provide guidance on how they could do this. We propose that where teachers devise their own assessment materials, they should be comparable in demand to the papers provided by the exam boards. Any assessment must allow students to demonstrate the standard at which they can perform.”
The consultation suggests that if papers devised by teachers are used, they should be sat by students at the same time as exam board papers to avoid any students being unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged.
And it says the papers generated by exam boards should be similar to past question papers.
