Thomas, Robin and Patrick chat about using teacher judgement to assess students, and wonder whether more trust should be placed in a teacher’s view of a student’s performance in future.

The “new normal” is just another way of saying “weird” as far as we’re concerned. In this episode, we range around the emergency assessment routines that OFQUAL have put into place, reflecting on the humanity and fairness that they have managed to salvage from what is a stressful and potentially difficult end to our GCSE and A-level students’ studies. It is interesting to contrast with CPAC, as this time of year also sees us tidying up and finishing of this traditional aspect of A-level assessment. Thomas talks about his experience as an exam board moderator, and we discuss whether this model of accountability has somehow lost its way.

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Music

• Season 7: Physics Is Our Business by Miracles of Modern Science.
• Seasons 5 and 6: Crescents by Ketsa.
• Seasons 3 and 4: Disco Sheik by Podington Bear.
• Seasons 1 and 2: One legged equilibrist polka by Circus Homunculus.
• Occasionally we also use Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith.

The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License