Mr. Aidan Farrell:

I thank the committee. Good afternoon on behalf of myself and my colleagues. We are pleased to be back with the committee this afternoon to answer any further questions. I refer to the petition that was signed by more than 10,000 candidates in advance of the 2017 junior certificate English examination and the subsequent appearance then of the petitioners before the committee in November. The committee then raised a number of issues with ourselves for further response.

At the outset, I am pleased to reiterate that the first examination of the revised junior certificate English examination took place last June. We were pleased to report to the committee that the examination transacted just as we would have wished, in terms of the time allocation, the demand placed on candidates and the conduct of the examination itself. We had taken steps prior to the examination, based on the petition, to make sure that would be the case. We were pleased that transpired.

The petitioners raised a number of issues in November. The committee asked us to comment on those and we are happy to do that. I will briefly mention what the issues were and then I will deal with them in turn. The petitioners felt they had been passed from Department to Department and their concerns were not adequately addressed, so they contacted us directly in March 2017.

A day later we were in the position to confirm to the petitioners that all steps would be taken to make sure that the examination could be completed by candidates within the allotted two hour time and that the exam would be fair to candidates. Subsequently, that turned out to be the case. There was some further engagement from the petitioners following my initial response later in March. Again, we replied a number of days later and reassured them of the particular situation. I am pleased that we were able to give that level of reassurance to candidates in general, and not just the four petitioners, about the conduct of the examination.

The next topic that the petitioners raised, which the committee has asked us to comment on, was that they understood the key philosophy of the junior cycle examination would be that candidates would have the opportunity to carefully plan, draft and redraft their responses to questions. In a response we set out that the assessment in the new junior cycle examination and framework is broader than what was traditionally the case. In the past, the assessment of junior certificate English would have taken place over two terminal examinations in June. Under the reformed junior cycle programme, assessment is much broader in terms of the planning of assessment and the requirement on candidates. Assessment takes place over the full cycle as opposed to just the terminal examination at the end of third year. The reason for this reform is twofold. First, we want to reduce the focus on terminal examinations and the relentless preparation and attempts to maximise performance in the examination, which research has shown does impact on student learning. There is now a focus on having assessments at various points over the course of the programme and giving feedback to students at the time. All of that helps students to learn better. We get feedback on how they perform and they learn how to improve their performance. The change reduces the focus on purely a terminal examination.

In the context of junior cycle English, there are two classroom-based assessments at school level, which are marked by the teachers in accordance with the national guidelines issued by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. A broader suite of skills are tested by the school-based assessments than are tested in the final examination. In third year there is a classroom-based assessment where students undertake a number of pieces of creative writing and submit two of them. By way of preparation, they actively work on preparing, drafting, redrafting, finessing and finalising their pieces of creative writing, which leads up to the assessment event that takes place in the classroom and is marked by the teacher. As a consequence, in the terminal examination set by the State Examination Commission, SEC, in June of third year, we do not have to ask students to respond to extended writing tasks. We consider their application of knowledge and skills at a broader level than simply in terms of extended essay responses at that particular point. That scenario is very much in line with the whole philosophy that underpins reform of the junior cycle reform. The assessment has been designed to improve student learning and engagement with learning as opposed to just preparation for final examinations.

The third issue that petitioners raised, which the committee has asked us to comment on, is that the official sample papers were not consistent in structure, which meant that the mock examination papers did not reflect the final examination. I can categorically state that the SEC is happy with the quality assurance measures that we have put in place, both in relation to the preparation and development of the sample paper and also with the final examination, that took place in June of last year. We made sure that the examination could be undertaken within the allotted period, that it would test the syllabus objective and learning outcomes required in the syllabus specification for testing through that assessment, and it would be completed within the two hour timeline provided for the examination. As I mentioned at the outset, we are very pleased that turned out to be the case because of the various steps that we had taken.

When there is a change of syllabus or specification, as it is now termed, or a brand new subject is introduced, students and teachers cannot rely on a previous suite of examination papers over a long number of years. The purpose of sample papers is to assist teachers and students and, indeed, the providers of mock examinations and let them know the structure, style and format of the final examination. Sample papers aim to give as much help and assistance to students and teachers, in particular, in advance but recognising that there is always some level of uncertainty in terms of what the assessment of a revised or a new subject will look like when first examined.