Barry Sheerman MP speech to Assessment Conference

“This event is wonderfully timed in that we announced yesterday that we will be conducting an inquiry into testing and assessment.

“In our inquiry, we want to...talk to people who are at the cutting edge. Many of you here today are in the real world of delivering education and the learning environment that we all care about.

“Let me tell you about how the select committee does its job. What it does try to do is reflect what’s out there in the real world in education and skills...We hold navigation seminars to find out whether there is value in holding inquiries into certain areas. Very often we will go from holding a navigational seminar to conducting an inquiry. We held a navigation seminar on assessment and decided that it is time to hold an inquiry into this area, where we can add value.”

“Questions are increasingly being asked about whether the assessment and testing we have at the moment is fit for purpose. If we strip away the system of inspection and the rationale for it, or for testing and assessment, what we all want at the end of the day is a very simple thing- we want a first rate education and learning environment for students. We want great schools where there is a great environment which encourages high quality teaching and high quality learning. …..it is about high quality teaching and learning, and getting an enormous amount of pleasure out of seeing young people come to life.”

“With testing and assessment, and perhaps with inspection, has the pendulum swung so far that it’s about time we saw it moving back? Moving towards trusting heads and teachers more? Why do we spend so much money on training people, recruiting them and attracting them to the profession and then not trusting them to do the job we recruited and trained them for? I think there is a very real question that you have to ask the GTC, that I have to ask as chair of the select committee, and everyone else in the sector has to answer - do we follow fads and fashions so far that we get out of sight of that simple objective – high quality teaching and learning?”

“I predict that there are going to be changes on testing and assessment….but I need your help. We are looking at the whole remit of testing and assessment, about whether it is fit for purpose, in great detail. We need you to say what you think because it may be that some of you think that testing and assessment is just where it should be. Or others may think that testing pupils at 7, 11 and 14 and then into 16 and 17 and 18, is a lot of testing and assessment, and that it might crowd out the freedom of innovation, the freedom for creativity, the freedom to sometimes let students fly.

“Do communicate with me about how you feel about testing and assessment and how can we can improve it - don’t be negative. I want you to say how it is for you and how we can change it for the better. It may be that we want to modify the process, not sweep it away. It may be that there are things we can do to ease the pressure. When Ken Boston, Head of the QCA, makes remarks about getting rid of much of the testing and replacing it with 3 per cent sample testing, you know there is something in the air and that there is some real fundamental questioning of what we’re doing at the moment.”

“I go to schools where I see brilliant teachers teaching, I see great headsleading and I see good kids learning and reading outside their subject, being energised…I believe that there are really good things happening in the educational sector, but we need to work together to make it even better than it already is.”