Dr. Anne Looney:

The Chairman articulated how children from disadvantaged backgrounds can feel that school is not for them and they disconnect. What is the role of assessment in helping them to connect? Certainly, it is within assessment processes that give students multiple opportunities to achieve such as if students were told that their piece of work would count towards their exam and that they would have three attempts at it. On their first attempt, they would receive feedback and then they could work on it again and again. That could build a student's confidence rather than the once-off exam in a clinical hall where they get a result but do not understand how they got it. That could be a positive motivator for students.

In the context of where we now live, as I said earlier there is a risk that in introducing continuous assessment, each one could become like a mini examination. Just as the teacher is sitting down with a student providing feedback, someone else is doing a Saturday course offered by a company. We would have to deal with the cultural obsession issues. I certainly believe it would be more motivating. If one wants a sense of the cultural obsession - with due respect to my colleague, Professor Hyland, and Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan - one can consider the conversation about Irish. At the same time, we are talking about the cultural obsession, we think a way to promote Irish is to tell some students that there are four levels of Irish and they will be doing the bottom level. I guarantee that the kids who will be doing the bottom level will be the kids the Chairman are talking about. Therefore, the whole philosophy of a common level and a wider pathway at junior cycle was about not messaging and not putting students in boxes too early and giving them multiple opportunities to succeed. Equally, the issuing of bonus points is a very blunt instrument. Our cultural obsession is to reward the ones who work really hard and do higher level and give them a few bonus points because that is our currency for success. Changing our mode of assessment can change the way we engage with students around assessment. I am not preparing them for the test; I am working with them to help them achieve in a piece of continuous assessment. That could be a big motivator. A distracting argument people often make is that students will do the project at home and that will obviously involve bringing in some social capital. It needs to be an in-classroom discussion with learners. It needs to happen in schools. There are some really good examples of that happening in schools already but teachers feel they have to stop doing them when they enter the examination season. Therefore, it is a question of how do we strike that balance.