Nick Hind, Excellence Director, The Academies for Character and Excellence
Laura Kendell, Headteacher and Assessment Project Team Lead
How long, we asked ourselves, have we been listening to the old adage: ‘Assess what you value and value what you assess’? Every conference dealing with the expansive subject of assessment begs the question of how we achieve this. Yet is it the right question? Or are we running the risk of adding yet another plate to be spun? Are we getting our priorities wrong if we put the focus on the separate strand of assessment? Perhaps we are missing a trick; perhaps there is an alternative. Perhaps we should refocus our thinking.
Are we asking the right questions?
Many people involved in education are asking the right questions: ‘What should we be assessing?’ ‘Are current arrangements fit for purpose?’ ‘Is assessment in schools too narrow?’ ‘Are assessment measures helping prepare pupils for the future?’ The list can go on and on. So, what needs to be put in place to make a real difference?
We are an Academy Trust in the South West of England: ACE, The Academies for Character and Excellence. Our journey started when a group of schools decided to work together to improve educational provision for all our pupils. We didn’t start with assessment, the curriculum or teaching and learning. We started by defining our purpose. What was it we wanted to achieve? Why was working together the way forward? In essence we started with our mission. Surely, if assessment should be doing one thing, it should be measuring how close or fast we are moving towards our mission being achieved. But the whole question of mission, aims, values and vision needs to be explored and understood for assessment to be meaningful. Which comes first? How are they aligned? How do they impact on our day-to-day work? How do they shape and dictate what and how we should be assessing?
How do school values shape teaching and learning?

Within ACE, we quickly realised that our values could only be agreed if the purpose was clear. We also knew that there was a huge difference between the way that we wanted to work (organisational values) and outcomes for pupils (curriculum values). All of our schools had values because that was expected, but none of our schools could articulate how these values shaped teaching and learning, how they impacted on pupil progress, or how we used them to define our curriculum intent, implementation and impact. Looking back now, it is so obvious that what we had really mastered was confusion and plate spinning rather than how to make a real difference to pupils.
So it was with this renewed clarity that within ACE we could start to consider what it was that we wanted to assess. The penny dropped. Surely, what we wanted to assess was exactly the same as what we wanted our curriculum to achieve. In other words, our curriculum intent defined our assessment. We didn’t need curriculum intent statements for every subject. We did however need to clearly define what we value in the curriculum and how we deliver on this.
Finding our true curriculum intent
We had a great day with the team, sitting on a hill with an inspirational view, getting really excited about what we really believed in and why we believed it. We spoke about the speed of change in the world and the need for young people to be flexible and adaptable learners. We talked about how tough (and wonderful) life can be. We discussed success and motivation, and the impact it has on self-perception and self-esteem.
It was from these discussions that our curriculum intent was defined. An intent that would shape not just curriculum content, but pedagogy, the organisation of learning, school leadership, research, improvement plans, Trust-wide engagement and of course, assessment. Our core curriculum values had to shape everything. One could not be disparate from the other. We want our young people to flourish in life. It was as simple as that.
Assessment flows from intent
To do this, however, required a completely different approach. As our name, The Academies for Character and Excellence, suggests, Character is one of our core values. We teach it, pupils learn it and we have agreed the progression of it. We understand its impact on SEND and Disadvantaged. We assess it and the difference it is making. Our values are valued. We say Character is important, so there it sits, right at the heart of our curriculum, and if it sits there then it must form an integral part of our assessment process.
But that can’t be the only thing that we value. Do we value academic success? Of course we do. We might not value some of the recent terms being used, such as ‘sticky knowledge’, ‘deep dives’ and ‘cultural capital’. But we do value pupils knowing things and having the confidence to apply this knowledge with increasing complexity and maturity. So how do we assess this? Certainly not through an old, outdated tick box culture. Yes, we have defined content progression and yes, this links with our concept progression. No, we don’t teach subjects and no, we don’t do projects or topics either. We don’t even have exercise books and we certainly have no workbooks or sheets. We don’t really teach lessons either. We want our pupils to engage in the learning process and be excited about the gains they are making, so our assessments must be concerned with how well our curriculum experiences promote this.
But can you actually see it in practice?
Something was missing though. How many schools do we go into, prospectuses do we read or conferences do we attend where we discuss and might even get excited about pupils’ independent learning, collaborative learning or creativity? Yet where are we most likely to see this? IN EYFS? Y6? Y10? Do we value it? If we do, then how is it built into the curriculum? How are teachers planning for it? What does the progression of this look like? Does it form part of our intent? If pupil independence is so obvious in EYFS, what could it look like as pupils move from key stage to key stage? If we can’t answer these questions, then how can we assess what we value?
So, within our Trust it was clear that if we wanted our pupils to flourish and make progress, then thinking and learning had to be our third core value, which took us back to: ‘If we value it, how are we promoting it?’ We can’t assess thinking and learning if we aren’t teaching it. What are the barriers we need to overcome? How do we engage pupils better with this? What does the progression of thinking and metacognition look like?
Assessment to improve and assessment to prove
So, with a set of values that link with the curriculum intent, driven by a desire to ensure all pupils flourish, we were set to consider how assessment can be used to best effect. By that we meant three things. Firstly, how can teachers use it to support pupil flourishing? Secondly, how do we engage both pupils and parents in the process? Thirdly, what systematic approach should we use? The outcomes of these discussions led us to consider assessment in two ways: assessment to improve and assessment to prove.
Our assessment research team established a set of innovative principles that move away from traditional forms of marking, replacing these with joint collaborative reflective discussions, captured by the pupils in their journals, so that they become a real part of the process. The early impact of this is that pupils are more engaged and motivated and more aware of their progress and where improvements can be made. It’s early days, but this impact is very encouraging.
Exercise books have now been replaced with reflective journals. Topics and projects have been replaced with learning experiences. School classrooms have been carefully considered and replaced with pupil learning areas. Imagine the shock displayed by an Ofsted inspector when they asked for a set of English books, only to be told: ‘We don’t have them.’ But then look at our recent inspection reports, which talk about the impact our curriculum, values, and organisation are having on pupil outcomes. ‘Fortune favours the brave.’ But we don’t see it as being brave; we just see it as doing what is right as opposed to doing things right for someone else’s purpose.
Where we are going next
As far as assessment to prove, well, that’s our current focus. We are gradually becoming clearer about what we want it to look like, but as yet, we haven’t really found anything that does what we want it to. It may well be that we look at designing our own App. We are reaching out to a couple of universities who have shown a real interest in what we are doing. We certainly have not got the answer yet. It takes time, we recognise that, but we are proud that we are resisting the tyranny of the urgent in favour of the quest to get it right. The quest for assessment to be integral to supporting young people to achieve and make progress: a quest where assessment itself engages the learner in a deep reflective process.
We are not there, we haven’t cracked it and we certainly don’t have all the answers, but we are The Academies for Character and Excellence, and we never stop reminding ourselves that excellence is not a destination but a journey. We will never stop asking: “How can we make it even better?” But isn’t that why we all joined the profession in the first place? A profession where learning does not just exist in the domain of the pupil but is also the privilege of the teacher.
We welcome conversations that challenge our thinking and look forward to working alongside many more like-minded people, from the world of education and beyond. A quest which results in growth and flourishing for all.
Contact us at:
Laura.kendell@acexcellence.co.uk
Website: