Blogs

At an expert roundtable in earlier this year we brought together key voices from the education sector to discuss the barriers to equity in education, and the information policy makers might need to improve it. Here, attendees Hardip Begol and Sammy Wright reflect on the discussion and share their thoughts on these perennial yet but crucial questions for any education system that aspires to equity.

This is the third in our four-part blog series setting out the key considerations to come from our latest #MappingTheWay event. This one explores why the supply of opportunities beyond the classroom is important, and how we can shape education to unlock them.

There are so many changes to education that it can be difficult to keep track of them all or remember what they were about. In this blog, Nicky Rushton talks about the Register of Change and the latest additions to it covering the effects of COVΙD-19 on schooling, general qualifications and vocational and technical qualifications.

This is the second in a four-part blog series that will set out the key considerations to come from the event. Part one focused on the need to look at young people across the distribution. This one discusses how we can build up a fuller, picture of young people’s lives to inform a more nuanced approach to improving outcomes.

As part of our SHAPE Education initiative, Cambridge University Press & Assessment is hosting monthly ‘SHAPE Live’ debates with experts on the future of education. On Tuesday, 1 March we discussed how, as educators and an education system, we can personalise learning. Brendan Wightman, secondary digital publishing lead (English) at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, reflects on the recent event.

All examinations contain a mix of questions that vary in how they discriminate between student ability. Providing advance information (an intervention that is intended to make certain questions on an examination easier) will affect the difficulty of questions in different ways. Tom Bramley, Director of the Research Division, asks whether providing advance information could benefit some students more than others.

A new research report published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment explores what we mean by competence. Two of three authors, Sylvia Vitello and Jackie Greatorex, explain the background to the report, what’s in it, and why clarity about what competence means is so important.

With all the work which has gone into creating our archive of thousands of assessments, that were developed using research evidence and quality assured, why don’t we just put our existing assessments on screen?

We recently reported on our research that catalogued in detail the experiences of 15 teachers based in England from diaries they were asked to keep during the first half of 2021. This blog describes how the research team set about collecting the data and sets out some of the insights the teachers provided.

Hear from Loic Menzies, former teacher and Chief Executive of The Centre for Education and Youth, researcher, and policy specialist on the key points and next steps for his series Mapping the Way to a More Equitable Future for Education.

Research and Thought Leadership Lead, Sarah Hughes explores, the definition of the term ‘digital’ and what that means for the future of assessment.

In the latest blog in our series on outline principles for the future of education, Tim Oates CBE, Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, challenges ‘Year Zero’ thinking in many of the discussions about future learning.

This is the latest in a series of blogs sharing stories about our assessment practitioner community. Kirsty Parkinson, Awarding Assessment Manager at The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply shares how she found a passion for assessment and a desire to take a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of it. Here she tells us how our postgraduate programme, the PGCA, equipped her to do just that.

In the latest blog in our series on outline principles for the future of education, Tim Oates CBE discusses and explores how reforming qualifications and assessment and implementing massive change to the system could affect the education sector as a whole.

In the latest blog in our series on outline principles for the future of education, Tim Oates CBE takes a look at the history of GCSEs in England to understand how the introduction of the qualification has benefitted young people.

Qualifications are central to key processes in societies and economies around the world and we should see their delivery as a public good, Tim Oates CBE argues in the latest blog in our series on outline principles for the future of education.

As part of our SHAPE Education initiative, we’re hosting monthly debates with experts on the future of education. This month we discussed how, as educators and an education system, we can prepare students to thrive in the future world. Dan Hutchinson, Proposition Director, Higher Education & Adult at Cambridge University Press ELT reflects on the recent event.

This is the fifth in a series of blogs sharing stories about our assessment practitioner community. Tom Cherry is Head of Qualifications at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) and has studied on three of Cambridge Assessment Network’s four A10 series of online courses. Here he talks to us about wanting to get assessment right for his industry, the learners, and the wider assessment community.

The last year and a half have seen enormous changes for education in England and the impact of the pandemic on education and assessment will continue to be felt for many years to come.