Ms Arlene Forster:

I thank the Deputy for his comments and questions. I will begin to pick up on them and then my colleagues, Mr. Slattery and Ms O'Connor, may like to come in as well.

To take the comments as a whole, the Deputy has touched on a lot of both the strengths and challenges that were identified through the senior cycle review in terms of assessment, in particular. Obviously, assessment is one of the three main areas that were identified in the review.

There is an acknowledgement in the advisory report - the Minister picked up on this - of the need and importance of additional research and of working closely with schools and the education partners in terms of examining the details of what updated assessment arrangements might look like.

Regarding teacher assessment and whether other forms of assessment could fulfil that role, one of the findings of the senior cycle review – it is clearly set out in the advisory report – was the importance of looking at broadening the range of assessment approaches and methods. One of the key reasons for doing this is to assess a much broader range of the knowledge, skills, values and dispositions that we deem important for our young people and, in doing so, reduce the emphasis on the written examination. Internationally, different systems put different assessment arrangements in place, but there are common characteristics across many jurisdictions. One of those is a move towards teacher-based assessment. One of the rationales used in many jurisdictions that introduced teacher assessment was the emphasis on greater validity, or in other words, putting assessment arrangements in place that can better capture the range of learning and experiences that we deem important for our young people and, in doing so, give young people opportunities to demonstrate their learning in different ways.

A point that is often made by authorities in the assessment field – the committee has met some of them during its deliberations in recent months – is that it is important that, when broadening assessment arrangements, the additional assessment components that are introduced do not necessarily emphasise the paper and pencil format. They need to look to other methodologies. The Deputy asked about practicals for a young person to demonstrate particular skills or techniques in a discipline. That is one of the reasons that teacher assessment is sometimes used in other jurisdictions, in that it opens up different methods and forms of assessment. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, though, the details of all of this need to be worked out. We need to draw on research and work with schools to see what is manageable and feasible and what supports need to be put in place to enable this approach in our school system.