The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) review team is questioning whether it is worth testing every child’s literacy and numeracy in P1, P4, P7 and S3 - or if “a simple sample-based assessment” would be “richer”.
The comments from those behind today’s long-awaited review of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) will likely spark a sense of déjà vu among teachers, not to mention frustration.
The Scottish government scrapped the nation’s sample-based survey - the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy (SSLN), which reported for the last time in 2017 - and replaced it with a standardised testing regime, amid opposition from the profession.
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At the time, it was warned that the move to create the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) could lead to teaching to the test and a narrowing of the primary curriculum; there were also concerns voiced that formal testing in P1, in particular, has little or no statistical value.
Critics warned, too, that if SSLN was scrapped, there would be a five-year gap in the pupil-performance data until the new standardised assessments were embedded.
Nevertheless, the SNSAs were introduced in 2017-18, and now the OECD is questioning their value.
The OECD review is questioning the existing census based testing of all pupils - suggesting we consider a sampling approach. Return of the SSLN?
- Mark Priestley ?? (@MarkRPriestley) June 21, 2021
The review says: “While this data is interesting, reporting it on a national scale and tracking small changes in percentages as evidence of improvement or otherwise may not be giving the system the robust data needed to monitor student achievement.”
It recommends that Scotland “redevelop a sample-based evaluation system to collect robust and reliable data necessary to support curriculum reviews and decision making”.
Tes Scotland asked members of the OECD review team - during a webinar about the report this morning - if the tests should be scrapped, given the unenthusiastic write-up they get in the review.
In response, Professor Anne Looney, executive dean of Dublin City University’s Institute of Education, said: “One of the questions the report poses is whether or not investing in a census-based approach and continuing to roll out the test for every child ...is worth continuing for the impact it might have on curriculum, or whether, in fact, a sample-based approach...that builds in data collection over time could actually give you much richer data and have less impact on curriculum and children’s learning.”
She added that this was “tied up with that overall theme of simplifying the system, and decluttering the experience for students and learners as much as possible, so they can focus on the core of Curriculum for Excellence”.
The Scottish government has said it is accepting the OECD’s recommendations in full - one of the recommendations when it comes to aligning the curriculum, and qualifications and system evaluation, is that Scotland “redevelop a sample-based evaluation system to collect robust and reliable data necessary to support curriculum reviews and decision making”.
The Scottish government has already said the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will be replaced and Education Scotland will no longer undertake inspections after the review called for a “specialist stand-alone” curriculum agency that could also be responsible for assessment.
On the SNSAs, the OECD report said: “Reporting on the levels has its limitations, given that they were designed to support teacher planning and judgement, and not to measure national progress. Small changes in data of this kind cannot give the system the intelligence it needs to monitor the achievement of particular groups of students within the cohort.”
The report added: “Similarly, while the census-based assessments (SNSA) are under way, the purpose and usefulness of these are already being questioned. Designed to provide data to support teacher judgement and information for system monitoring, it is questionable whether census-based assessments of this kind can serve both purposes well.”
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said: “The [OECD] report seems to confirm that the government’s focus on Scottish Standardised National Assessments has been a monumental distraction, with little impact other than adding to the bureaucracy that bedevils teachers’ working lives.”
He also said that the OECD report’s “absence of any comment on the pre-5 sector is both disappointing and worrying”.
He added: “CfE runs from 3-18 but we are seeing a continuing reduction in the number of nursery teachers deployed in early years, which is a betrayal of the Scottish government’s previous commitment to protecting the role of the teacher in pre-5 provision.”
