GovWire

Ofqual has today (14 March 2018) set out how it intends to strengthen its regulation ofawarding organisations involvement of teachers in the development of confidentialassessment materials. Todays consultation reflects detailed analysis of existingprocesses and extensive discussions with awarding organsiations, examiners, teachers,students and parents. The new regime, if confirmed, will extend to all regulatedqualifications.

The proposals include:

• explicitly setting out in our rules steps awarding organisations must take to helpprotect the integrity of the assessments to which teachers have contributed; and
• publishing further statutory guidance to help awarding organisations understand thefactors and approaches they should consider when deciding how to comply with therules.

Consistent with these proposals, teachers will continue to be able to write assessments andhave access to confidential materials. However, awarding organisations must maintain up todate records of all conflicts of interest relating to teachers who have seen confidentialassessment materials. And they must review their safeguards such that they are appropriateand proportionate to:

• effectively mitigate the risks of using teachers in the development of assessmentmaterials, for example by making sure no teacher knows whether or when anyassessments they have developed will be used;
• support teachers to do the right thing, through appropriate training and contractualobligations;
• detect malpractice, for example by sampling the work of teachers who have writtenexam papers to look for any unusual patterns of response.

We are also stressing that the way in which awarding organisations have regard to ourguidance will be taken into account when deciding on the nature and scale of any regulatoryaction should a breach of confidentiality occur.

Timing

The exam boards who deliver GCSEs, AS and A levels and other qualifications used asequivalents, such as the Pre-U have already written the exams for summer 2018.Safeguards for 2018 will, therefore, need to focus on deterring and detecting malpracticeand on supporting teachers. These awarding organisations have published a joint statementsetting out their intentions for this summer.Subject to the outcome of the consultation, and where necessary, we expect that allawarding organisations will have made significant progress in terms of the safeguards theyemploy by summer 2019, and have fully revised their approaches by 2020. This transitionperiod is necessary to avoid introducing an unacceptable degree of risk to the delivery ofsafe qualifications.

Sally Collier said:

Almost universally, respondents to our call for evidence emphasised the importance ofretaining a strong link between teaching and examining, and the benefit it brings toassessment design. Our rules on confidentiality and malpractice are already demanding.The proposals we have put forward today build on them and provide greater clarity about ourexpectations and the implications for awarding organisations if information about anassessment is disclosed by a teacher who has been involved in its development. There is noone-size-fits-all solution to the challenge of maintaining confidentiality. However, the eventsof summer 2017 showed how public confidence in assessments and, in turn, qualifications,can be damaged if confidential information is wrongly used. It is essential that those whotake or otherwise rely on qualifications have upmost confidence in the outcomes.

Background

• In September 2017 we announced we would review:
• the risks and benefits of the long-established practice whereby some teachers whowrite or contribute to exam papers also teach the qualification; and
• the effectiveness of the safeguards used to reduce the risk of a teacher who has thisdual role disclosing or otherwise misusing information about confidentialassessments.

We are publishing a suite of research and analysis today that provides context and supportto our consultation proposals.

They include:

• a summary of our call for evidence into the benefits and risks of teachers beinginvolved in the development of qualifications that they teach
• interviews with teacher-examiners about the risks and benefits of their involvement indeveloping assessment materials
• a review of safeguards used to prevent disclosure of confidential material in countriesoutside England
• a review of safeguards used to prevent disclosure of confidential material in countriesoutside England
• interviews with students studying for AS/A levels, and parents of secondary schoolaged children, to understand their views on teacher involvement in writing exams
• research into the sources of, and ways of identifying anomalou
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