Assessing GCSE English 2018–19
Over the last week we’ve published a series of blogs explaining the results of our November 2017 GCSE English comparative judgement pilot. Here are the links to all the blogs.
- Overview
- Background
- Design
- Judging vs. Marking
- Marks and grades
- Validity of grades
- Efficiency and reliability
The question we are asked the most is about whether comparative judgement gives the same results as exam marking. The fourth blog above answers that question and shows that when we included pre-marked scripts, they got very similar marks from our judges.
We are really pleased with the results and we now have enough evidence to proceed with a larger-scale project. However, we have made some adjustments to our GCSE English project next year, based on the results and the feedback we got from schools. Here is a summary of the changes we have made.
We’re only assessing one essay question per window, instead of two. Doing two questions at the same time is possible, but it adds complexity with the printing and scanning of answer sheets. So we are going with just one question per window.
We’re including English Literature as well as Language. The approach works for essays, so we are expanding it next year to Literature.
We’re going to have six assessment windows a year instead of two. There will be six windows spread out across the year: 4 for Language and 2 for Lit. Schools don’t have to take part in all of them — they can choose.
We’re going to assess year 10 and year 11 in the same windows. Schools can choose whether they want to enter both year groups, or just one. They will judge the year groups together, but receive results separately.
We know that schools all have different assessment calendars and the aim of these changes is to make Assessing GCSE English easy and flexible for different schools to use. It is not a replacement for a full mock exam, as it doesn’t cover all the questions in a GCSE. But it will give very reliable results quickly, and it will also give teachers exposure to work being done in other schools across the country. You can read more about it here.
