One of education’s most prominent assessment specialists has chosen to dedicate her working life to comparative judgement.

Daisy Christodoulou has resigned from her post as head of assessment for Ark Schools, and is to take up a role with No More Marking, an online engine to help teachers with comparative-judgement assessments.

She said: “Comparative judgement has enormous potential to transform the way assessment works. Some of the most pressing problems in education today are around workload, marking accuracy, and the way that assessment distorts the curriculum. Comparative judgement has the potential to help solve all of these problems.” 

Comparing scripts

As Tes outlined in a recent feature, comparative judgement involves teachers taking two pupils’ scripts and simply deciding which one they think is better. This information is then fed into computer software.

Teachers then compare another two scripts, and another two. The computer algorithm is then able to rank many scripts into order of quality, as judged by the teachers. The process is significantly quicker than current marking and moderation of written work.

The exact rankings of the scripts need not be available to anyone other than the computer.

In the past, Ms Christodoulou has referred to comparative judgement as “an assessment innovation that really works”.

‘Once-in-a-lifetime’

No More Marking runs a software system through which teachers’ comparative judgements are processed.

It was the system recently used by Ms Christodoulou when she introduced comparative-judgement trials in classrooms across the Ark academy chain.

She said: “No More Marking have developed an incredibly powerful and easy-to-use comparative judgement engine, and the chance to develop their model from the start felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Ms Christodoulou will continue to be involved with Ark in an advisory capacity.

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