CURRICULUM FOR EXCELLENCE AND BTC 5 :
POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SCOTTISH
QUALIFICATIONS AUTHORITY
A conversation with Ruth Sutton
Feb. 17th 2010
CFE, BTC 5, TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS
National Assessment arrangements have now
begun to roll out, with very rapid change
expected over the next few months
 For some ‘CfE deniers’ this is coming as a shock
 Record-keeping and reporting are still unknown
quantities: BTC 5 refers constantly to ‘regular’
reporting to parents, but provides no indication of
frequency, without which the implications are
impossible to determine
 Secondary teachers seem more anxious and
confused than their primary counterparts. Is this
the case, and if so, why?
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Some questions I’ve raised recently
with Scottish teachers about
assessment
 How can we achieve an acceptable balance of validity (accuracy)
and reliability (consistency and fairness) in national assessment
and avoid the ‘collateral damage’ to teaching and learning?
 How can we substitute ‘shared professional judgement’ for the
external test ?
The assessment balancing act: do the
elements pull in different directions?
Reliability
Validity
Best fit
Manageability
Cost and ‘credibility’
Assessment: 2 Key Purposes
Assessment of learning
Assessment for learning
Checks learning to date
Audience beyond the classroom
Periodic
Uses numbers, scores and grades
Criterion/standards referenced
No need to involve the learner
Suggests next learning
Audience is teachers and learners
Continual – conversation and
marking
Specific feedback, using words
Self-referenced, ‘ipsative’
Must involve the learner – the
person most able to improve
learning
‘Shared professional judgment’
What is happening with Curriculum for Excellence?
1. Standards remain relatively ‘loose’
2. Those involved in making judgments need to agree on the
precise meaning and implications of the ‘standards and
expectations’
3. Judgments will be shared and cross-checked, to reduce
‘rater variables’ (ie. the individual teacher’s judgment) to
an acceptable level, and improve reliability, given the
inevitable margin or error
The benefits of ‘moderation’ in the current
Scottish circumstances
 CfE emphasises skills rather than content
 The evidence of skills is necessarily contextual, and more easily
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found across a range of classroom activities than in separate
assessment ‘events’
Teachers will share their understanding of the CfE framework in
order to design their teaching activities
Sharing their understandings and planning is a more efficient way
to work than each teacher or subject team working alone
Teachers will be more confident and clear, gathering
only as little evidence as they need, not as much as they
can manage
Parents will receive more accurate reports about their children’s
progress, based on shared considered evidence and judgment
Costs and benefits of moderation,
for teachers?
Costs:
 Time to discuss expectations
 Possible change in planning habits
 Initial confusion resulting from a poor understanding of the
purposes and principles of assessment
Benefits:
 Greater clarity about CfE ‘experiences and outcomes’
 Getting teaching and assessment ideas from other teachers
 Improved manageability through gathering less evidence
 Greater confidence when reporting to parents
 Better understanding of the purposes and principles of assessment
Professional sharing of ‘standards’
The teachers’ discussion will probably have four stages:
1. What do these ‘standards’/ ‘experiences and outcomes’
really mean, and what do they look like in practice?
2. What evidence would properly support a teacher’s
judgment of a student’s achievement of the ‘standard’?
3. What ‘success criteria’ will we need to identify progress
within the level?
4. What teaching activities will be necessary to enable the
student to learn, practice and demonstrate achievement of
the ‘standards’?
Backwards Design
 Traditionally teachers have planned ‘forwards’ from a definition of learning objectives,
into teaching activities and finally into assessment activities and evidence of performance
 Backwards Design – the process
 ask big questions about what the pupils will learn, and prioritising the most important
elements
 Consider what evidence would/will there be that this desired learning has happened?
 ensure that this evidence will be a valid reflection of the expected learning, and
sufficient (‘proportionate’) for reporting purposes
 design teaching and learning activities which will generate this evidence of learning,
starting with the necessary check for prior learning and misconceptions
 The benefit of Backwards Design is that it enables both teachers and pupils to identify the
learning goals and focus on them in both teaching and assessment.
Experience of ‘moderation’
This is a personal view, based on experience of helping
teachers implement standards-based curriculum and
assessment over the past twenty years or so
Teachers find ‘moderation’  Challenging, as it exposes their professional learning
and judgment to the scrutiny of their peers
 Very helpful, as it involves detailed practical
discussion of learning expectations and the teaching
tasks necessary to encourage learning and achievement
 Necessary, to avoid individual teachers gathering
too much, poor quality evidence to compensate for their
lack of confidence
Some suggestions..
 Don’t spend too long initially on semantic deconstruction of
the words in the ‘standard: when someone opens the Roget’s
Thesaurus it’s probably time to move on
 To help lower the temperature, use neutral exemplars to clarify
and illuminate the discussion, before reaching for work done
by your own students
 Encourage teachers to accept that professional differences of
view are probable and acceptable. They are also opportunities for
professional learning if we keep an open mind.
Learning from others
 Wales has begun a process of structured moderation
at KS2 and KS3, to improve the quality of teacher
judgment and to encourage sharing of best teaching
practices.
 Queensland, Australia has a long history of
assessment using teacher moderation. Check out
www.education.qld.gov.au/qcar/social-mod.html
 New Zealand’s new curriculum will also be
supported by a moderation process, leading to
‘Overall Teacher Judgment’.
Queensland’s Conference Model of
Moderation
 “Using the conference model for moderation, teachers discuss and
deliberate in making their judgments about the quality of all of the
evidence presented as student work.
 Teachers make judgments on several criteria to reach an 'on-
balance' holistic judgment. This is not a procedural approach but
one that is based on the teachers' professional knowledge in shared
and collaborative decision making.
 Teachers mark (some or all) student responses individually, and
then select assessment samples representative of their application
for A to E standards. They meet with other teachers to discuss their
judgments by sharing their samples. Teachers reach a consensus on
the interpretation and application of the standards.”
The Role of the Facilitator
“In the Conference Model of social moderation the role of the
facilitator may include:
 Establishing the moderation environment
 Identifying the curriculum intent
 Leading professional dialogue
 Facilitating conversations that support evidence-based
teacher judgment
 Clarifying moderation protocols
It is not expected that the facilitator act as an expert, but rather
assist teachers reach consensus through a shared
understanding of the curriculum intent and the grade
awarded”
Queensland Social Moderation Protocols
“Commit to the purpose of the moderation process
Adopt a sense of responsibility in and for the group
Respect and listen to others openly
Accept where others are at
Cooperate in good faith
Aim for consensus in decision making
Address problems respectfully by seeking clarification
and understanding, focusing on the student work and not
the teacher who presents it
 Treat others as you would like to be treated
 Critique not criticise”
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Finding the assessment balance:
the ‘Muddle in the Middle’
In the primary years,
• the norms of assessment remain largely ‘formative’
• AiFL has been accepted and adopted, on the whole
• The structures and cultures of most primary schools encourage
collaboration
In the secondary years,
• the dominant assessment culture has been external and summative
• AiFL is ‘patchy’, at best: ‘tools’ are used without necessary understanding
of ‘principles’
• Structures are fragmented vertically, discouraging collaboration in skills
assessment (Num., Lit., and HWB) across ‘subjects’
S1 (and possibly P7) to S3 sit uncomfortably between these two
SQA’s position
• My impression is that SQA, like any other
qualifications authority, has been over many
years focused on ‘subjects’, reliability and a
particular definition of ‘fairness’
• CfE and BTC 5, and the principles of AiFL that
ostensibly underpin both, challenge many of the
‘old’ paradigms assumptions.
• Secondary schools and teachers are looking for
clarity and leadership: without this some more
basic instincts and attitudes may prevail
Some basic instincts and attitudes
• Assessment is primarily about measurement
• ‘Grading and sorting’ is the first purpose of secondary
assessment
• Involving the students (a la AiFL) doesn’t make sense in
these circumstances
• External measures are required to prevent teachers and
students ‘cheating the system’
• In a content-led curriculum, planning and teaching is largely
about ‘coverage’: how then to plan and deliver a skillsbased curriculum in which the context is determined by the
teacher?
• A ‘level’ is a line, not a large space within which students
might learn non-sequentially
Questions
• What are the issues and concerns facing SQA
at this stage in the roll-out of CfE and BTC5?
• What is SQA’s role as an essential provider of
teachers’ professional learning over the next
months/years?
• What are the key messages around
assessment that SQA can help to disseminate,
and how is this best achieved?
Thanks for the invitation to
talk with you
 All my views are personal
and can therefore be
completely disregarded
 Additional ‘outsider’ views
might provide necessary
‘triangulation’
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Sutton.ruth@gmail.com