Leadership Likes: Dr Purvis

 Is All Change Progress with Public Examinations?

Isn’t it funny how certain events from your childhood stay with you throughout your adult life?

The birth of a sibling, a memorable holiday, a rite of passage, and perhaps even a broken bone or two—these sorts of things seem to make an indelible mark on our brains. One such memory for me is sitting in a GCSE History lesson and hearing—for the first time—the aphorism: ‘progress is change, but not all change is progress’. This phrase is habitually but erroneously attributed to the American President Woodrow Wilson rather than its true progenitor—a basketball player and coach—John Wooden. For me, it captures with remarkable brevity, the ebb and flow that accompanies every narrative of adaption, change and revision.

Since the words were first echoed, Wooden’s aphorism has taken on a life of its own beyond its basketball genesis. I have seen it reproduced on tote bags and mugs, to mention only two examples. Despite this somewhat cliched usage, I have found myself returning to this quote repeatedly throughout my teaching career.

If the past year has taught us anything, it is that when change is required, humanity has a remarkable way of adapting to it. Who would have thought back in February 2020 that face coverings, social distancing, lateral flow testing, endless handwashing and all the other trappings of a global pandemic would come to shape our daily lives in the way that they have? Brief recourse to scientific literature details how our brains are hardwired to respond to change as it releases dopamine to help us learn, plan, and reflect. Indeed, the neurons that make up this reward system have fifty times more connections than your average neurotransmitter. Throughout human history, the very ability to change and adapt has given us a survival advantage. Without it, we would not be driven to learn new things or invent solutions to constantly changing problems.

Over the past year, there has been a dizzying array of now-familiar adjustments made in schools that have repeatedly called upon these biological processes. We have all adapted to virtual teaching and learning. We have acquired new skills as contact tracers. We have used every neurotransmitter in our brain’s arsenal to run testing centres and socially distanced activities. We have faced the challenge of awarding GCSEs and A levels in the absence of the usual roster of public examinations head on. It is here that I want to pause for a moment.

I have been mightily impressed with how the 2020 and 2021 examination cohorts have responded to the change to assessment forced on them by the pandemic. As we begin to emerge from the other side of the Teacher-Assessed Grade process, I also want to thank—publicly—the teachers whose hard work, agility and care shaped each stage. I also want to extend the thanks of the Croydon High community to parents and guardians of Year 11 and Upper Sixth, whose support has been invaluable to pupils and teachers alike.

The Teacher-Assessed Grade process has revealed that while we can award grades that command confidence in the absence of public examinations, it does not mean that this should become a permanent new way of working. Public examinations provide an indisputably objective assessment of pupils’ knowledge, skills, and understanding at a remove that all stakeholders appreciate. Indeed, the teaching body at Croydon High School is keeping everything crossed in the hope that public examinations return in 2022. Perhaps somewhat inevitably, nonetheless, the events of the last couple of years have been seen by some in the education sector—such as the Rethinking Assessment movement—as an opportunity to reshape what they see as the ‘mess’ of our examination systems.

This feels to me, however, like a clamour for change which may well not provide the progress we crave. Well-meaning debates on scrapping GCSEs underplay the extraordinary success of these qualifications, which has seen them exported worldwide. Furthermore, they often overlook the fact that GCSEs and A levels do so much more than assess what pupils know. These public examinations form a basis for learning schemes, they make clear the expectations required of pupils and their teachers at each stage, they offer motivating goals, and they provide a quality-assured passport to further study and employment.

GCSEs and A levels are not perfect, and nor should they escape reform, therefore. These qualifications could and should adopt some of the more advanced features from other assessments systems, such as those used successfully in the International Baccalaureate. I would argue, though, that GCSEs and A levels have been long-lived and deserving of their status precisely because they have adapted to the changing educational landscape. The political posturing that has meant that our public examination system has been subjected to multiple and somewhat short-sighted reforms in quick succession has done little to limit their eminence. But we must continue to do all we can to protect it.

Radical reform or even abolition such as that advocated by the Rethinking Assessment movement could leave gaps in our educational arrangements, which may well create even more disruption when we are craving normality and predictability. As Tim Oates—the Research Director of Cambridge Assessment—has argued rather persuasively: ‘while crises can create positive opportunities for change, their reverberations could damage the well-laid foundations of GCSEs and A levels’.

In terms of the progress/change dialectic, I think the changes imposed on public examinations in 2020 and 2021 cannot be characterised as progress per se beyond the limited terms of enabling centres and exam boards to award grades in two extraordinary years. Taking a longer view, though, there is nothing to suggest that GCSEs and A levels cannot evolve again in a way which is driven by evidence-informed strategic judgements. We should resist the reflexive response so that the changes we make to public examinations stand the test of time. We need to do all we can to ensure, when it comes to the important issue of assessment in education, that all change really is progress.

Dr Philip Purvis

Deputy Head (Academic)