Consultation into strengthening teacher-examiner safeguards

Ofqual has set out how it intends to strengthen its regulation of awarding organisations’ involvement of teachers in the development of confidential assessment materials.

The consultation reflects detailed analysis of existing processes and extensive discussions with awarding organisations, examiners, teachers, students and parents. The new regime, if confirmed, will extend to all regulated qualifications.

The proposals include explicitly setting out in Ofqual rules steps awarding organisations must take to help protect the integrity of the assessments to which teachers have contributed.

Another proposal includes publishing further statutory guidance to help awarding organisations understand the factors and approaches they should consider when deciding how to comply with the rules.

Consistent with these proposals, teachers will continue to be able to write assessments and have access to confidential materials.

However, awarding organisations must maintain up to date records of all conflicts of interest relating to teachers who have seen confidential assessment materials.

And they must review their safeguards to effectively mitigate the risks of using teachers in the development of assessment materials, for example by making sure no teacher knows whether or when any assessments they have developed will be used.

As well as, support teachers to do the right thing, through appropriate training and contractual obligations and detect malpractice, for example by sampling the work of teachers who have written exam papers to look for any unusual patterns of response.