Assessment of the National Curriculum in England

Abstract

Outlining the key features of the national assessment system in England might seem a fairly straightforward task, but the story is a complicated one, and the parameters of the system are constantly changing. The system has its origins in a highly devolved and entirely voluntaristic system of school examinations; has been driven by differing political priorities over a period of 15 to 20 years; and is still evolving as differing priorities interact with implementation difficulties. Moreover, although national assessment was conceived of in the context of a United Kingdom-wide government for implementation across the UK, and at various points in this chapter I shall refer to the UK as if it were a single administrative unit, implementation has differed across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland have always had separate systems of education from England and Wales and, recently, constitutional devolution has placed even more decision making power with the regional parliament in Scotland and regional assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. Thus, although the broad thrust of policy is similar across the UK, implementation has differed across the four countries, and hence the detail of the chapter refers only to England. These variations derive at least in part from variation in the strength of the ideological debate underlying national assessment and, although the development of policy has been broadly similar across the UK, it has been implemented in the regions with rather less visceral hatred of the teaching profession than has been manifested by central government in London. Indeed, one of the main tasks in a review such as this is to try to identify what principles of national assessment might be appropriately discussed as policy options elsewhere, shorn of the particular ideological battles which pervaded invention and implementation in England.