I have previously written about the background behind the National Reference Tests and the fact that Ofqual had considered making them “compulsory for all” IN THIS POST well the good news is that it looks like this isn’t going to happen after all.

I have read the PUBLICATION TODAY from Ofqual providing an overview of the new reference tests and a phrase that was bandied around the corporate world about “treating the symptom and not the cause” is running around my head (it’s a weird place at the best of times!). So here’s my bullet point summary:

  • The first tests will take place in March 2017.
  • Thereafter they will be used when awarding GCSEs.
  • The aim is that they provide evidence on “changes in performance standards over time in English language and Maths in England at the end of year 11”
  • Tests will be in English and Maths and will be based on new content for GCSEs but they “may not be in exactly the same style as the new GCSE questions” and the questions will not “reflect any particular exam board’s style of GCSE questions.”
  • We can expect sample questions later this year (Mel: read that as next year! **tongue in cheek**)
  • Each one hour test is made up of several booklets and each student will sit just one booklet, so no student has to take the whole test.
  • Test isn’t tiered – but there will be some content at the end that “will be based on the content only studied by those preparing to take the higher tier GCSE, but these will be clearly marked.”
  • “The questions will remain largely the same from year to year to enable performance standards to be compared” (Mel: will we then not have the issue of teaching to the test… isn’t the new GCSE about moving away from that “topic spotting”?)
  • Questions used in the tests will be confidential and will not be published, and there will be no individual feedback to students.
  • The new tests will be developed over the next 18 months (Mel: it’s taken nearly so long to develop the SAMs so I remain unconvinced that this timescale is achievable … I can already see the media headlines “NRT shambles”).
  • Oh my gosh (yes! I’ve just used that phrase!) this coming September there will be a trial of some of the questions and March 2016 Ofqual will hold a prelim reference test. (Mel: now where do I start?… some of these students just won’t have been taught the new content! In the research project there is a discussion about the extent to which certain results may have been “due to a lack of motivation on the part of the students or to a lack of preparation for the new subject matter”. I don’t see what will have changed by Sept/Oct)
  • This trial will be the same size as future years .. but the focus is on the operational arrangements. (Mel: yeah right!)
  • According to the publication “a random sample of 30 students from around 300 schools will be asked to take a test booklet in maths or English” … (Mel: I am assuming that is meant to be 30 students from each school)
  • They “expect all randomly selected pupils to take the test” however “headteachers will have the option to exclude pupils from the testing – at their discretion and in exceptional circumstances”.
  • A different sample of schools will take part each year.
  • The tests will be administered by NFER and someone will come to the school to carry out the tests (Mel: how much is this costing us, the taxpayer?)
  • Annual “national measures of performance” will be published (around the time of the GCSE results) and an explanation will be given how these results will be taken into account with the awarding of the GCSEs.
  • Basically the NRTs will “set out the percentage of students in that year who are predicted, based on the tests, to achieve at least a grade 4, a grade 5 or a grade 7 in their GCSE.”

The recent report for the GCSE research programme itself mentions that “Research has suggested that test-taking motivation affects test performance. In a low-stakes testing environment, where there are little or no consequences associated with test performance or perceived benefits for the test-takers, the performance on a test can be considerably lower than the performance under high-stakes conditions.” The validity of a national reference test is questionable – they have all the problems that apply to any test, in terms of establishing validity, reliability and grade boundaries. Additionally for me, the fact that these results have no personal consequences for the students, as they do with GCSEs, and so there is no motivation for them, making comparisons problematic. There is a danger that they will be either taken very seriously and adding to the stress on year 11, at a crucial time or they will be totally ignored and become a box-ticking exercise.

 I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on whether a National Reference Test is a good move and despite my cynicism I’m not saying I have a solution or a better way – in fact I’m not wavering in either direction at this point in time. The current system of setting GCSE grade boundaries – a combination of ‘comparable outcomes’, other statistical information and the professional judgement of examiners has its roots back in 2002 when the use of “comparable outcomes’ was developed by exam boards to ensure that the first cohort to take reformed A levels was neither advantaged nor disadvantaged. I get that there is a risk that students will not achieve as well as they may have done if they had been taking a legacy exam but this could be overcome by preparing the students adequately but in order to do that, part of the jigsaw means that we need to know what the end game looks like.

PS: I am still waiting for a response (Ofqual if you’re reading this) to my freedom of information request I mention here HERE… 10 days left … I’m watching the clock.  

PPS: I promise I’ll be back to blogging about things closer to home, like my teaching soon. Look out for my “best guess” paper that I’ll have ready LATE on Thursday evening.