Teacher-assessed grading One teacher's view

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic severely disrupted education at all levels. One consequence was that alternative arrangements had to be made for the 2021 summer public examinations. Exam boards asked staff at schools and colleges to generate, for each subject, teacher-assessed grades for their students. The submitted grades had to reflect 'a fair, reasonable and carefully considered judgement of the student's performance across a range of evidence, on the curriculum content that they have been taught'. 1 A process of standardisation had to be established within each centre, which exam boards would check. Ofqual recommended that evidence to support the teacher-assessed grades (TAGs) which students were given should include answers to past papers and trial exam questions, performance on coursework tasks and school-set tests devised to reflect the exam specifications, and teacher records of a student's capability and performance over the course of study. The following article is based on reflections compiled in June 2021 on the experience of awarding TAGs by a teacher who works in an urban sixth form centre. The teacher's name, and the name of the centre, have been withheld.