Blog
Do national curriculum levels provide us with a shared language?
Posted on December 1, 2013
In a few recent posts I’ve talked about the difficulties with using criteria as the sole reference point for exams. I think these difficulties can be seen very clearly with national curriculum levels,…
The adverb problem
Posted on November 24, 2013
In a previous blog I looked at how hard it is to set exams based on criteria. I quoted Tim Oates: The first issue is the slippery nature of standards. Even a well-crafted statement of what you need to…
What happens when you outsource the curriculum to the exam syllabus
Posted on November 23, 2013
In a previous post I looked at the vagueness of the 2007 national curriculum and some of the problems this posed for teachers. Often, when I discuss with this people, they say one of two things: First…
GLA London Schools Atlas
Posted on November 20, 2013
A couple of weeks ago the Greater London Authority published a fascinating resource for anyone interested in London schools. It’s the GLA London Schools Atlas. The GLA have overlaid a map of London wi…
Doris Lessing
Posted on November 17, 2013
I was very sad to hear today that Doris Lessing had died. Doris Lessing has been my favourite author since I first read Mara and Dann when I was 15. I think The Golden Notebook is probably my favourit…
Exams and Goodhart’s Law
Posted on November 16, 2013
I blogged recently about the difficulty of finding the right assessment system. Afterwards, in a throwaway remark on twitter, I said that finding the right assessment format was a bit like finding the…
Chemistry curriculum comparison
Posted on November 7, 2013
In my presentation at the ARK Summit on Monday I compared the English 2007 National Curriculum in Chemistry to grade 7 (that’s year 8) of E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Curriculum. Chemistry content in…
Norm-referencing and criterion-referencing
Posted on November 3, 2013
This is an excellent article by Tim Oates which looks at the different ways of awarding grades in national exams. In particular, it looks at norm-referencing and criterion-referencing. As Tim Oates no…
Research on multiple choice questions
Posted on October 30, 2013
Since my last posts on multiple choice questions (here and here), Kris Boulton and Joe Kirby have pointed me in the direction of Robert Bjork’s work on remembering and forgetting. Here’s an extract fr…