Ms Arlene Forster:

One point I would make at the outset in response to that is we need to be very clear about what we want to achieve for our young people. Ms O'Connor spoke earlier about the consensus that we arrived at around the purpose of a redeveloped senior cycle. Working on from that, as we get into the individual subjects, modules or units of learning, the question is what is the contribution of each of those to a young person's overall education. Once we are clear about the teaching and learning, the onus is on us to design assessment arrangements that are the best fit in terms of giving young people the opportunities to demonstrate that learning as best they can. Part of it is giving them opportunities to demonstrate learning in a number of different ways.

As for the Chairman's questions on continuous assessment, as Mr. Slattery has mentioned, this is where the work with schools becomes really important because that work enables us to ask many of the practical questions, including some of the questions the Chair has just put to us, around what the benefits might be and, equally, what the real challenges and difficulties might be with the different forms, modes and timing of assessments. Working closely with schools is a very important part of this. It is not unique to the assessment piece. It goes right across the board in terms of what we hope to do through the redevelopment of the senior cycle.

The other piece I would add is the research. Mr. Slattery mentioned the extent to which we keep our eyes and ears open to international practice and experience. That research piece will become very important for us. In the senior cycle review advisory report, we identified a number of pieces of research, some in the assessment space, that will become critical for us as we move into the next stage of the work, which involves getting into more of the detail and nuances of areas such as assessment.

We need to put all those pieces in place to be able to take some of those practical questions and work them out in partnership with schools and education partners.