- Case Studies
Case Study - How Adaptive Comparative Judgement facilitated a groundbreaking, global creative writing competition for schools
Introduction
As part of its 120th anniversary celebrations the ISEB worked with the RM Compare Team to launch a groundbreaking creative writing competition. The Board were keen to use Adaptive Comparative Judgement based on a previous project that showed a number of advantages over traditional assessment approaches.
In November 2024 the results were announced, with the stories from the 4 category winners being published as beautifully illustrated books.
The Challenge
Inclusivity was high on the ISEB list of key intents. They are an international organisation serving a diverse community of educators and learners across the globe. It was important to design a creative experience that encouraged difference and divergence - one which enabled children to incorporate their local culture and lived experience.
At the same time, it was important that there was a common shared experience for all participants. It needed to be simple, engaging and intuitive. This included the judging experience which should allow entries to be shared, viewed and reviewed widely in a safe and respectful environment.
In practical terms, the end-to-end process needed to be scalable and easy to manage for individual entrants, schools and the ISEB themselves.
Finally, the ISEB also wanted to gather intelligence from the data generated to understand the relative performance of entrants and schools in different geographies.
The 5 Tests
The solution
The 'Time to Write' competition for 2024 was open to all schools, including non-ISEB ones. Entries were welcomed into 4 categories
- Writers in Years 3 and 4: 500 words
- Writers in Years 5 and 6: 650 words
- Writers in Years 7, 8, and 9: 750 words
- Writers in Years 10 and 11: 1000 words
The task in all categories was to write a short story based on a time-travelling them.
RM Compare was used for the judging process. Judges included the entrants themselves.
The Results
The thousands of entries received were easily and elegantly managed by the RM Compare system. The biggest category had 856 Items and 319 Judges!
The ISEB were able to identify the top 10 entries with confidence, re-assured that the process has removed issues of reliability and bias that plague traditional assessments. The shortlisted entries we taken to a panel judging session where experts decided the winners.
The outcome
The winning writers had their stories turned into illustrated books. You can read them right now here - https://write.iseb.co.uk/ . They also won a set of amazing tech and book prizes.
Each winner's school won a great set of prizes, including a £1000 voucher to spend on school resources from TTS (Part of the RM group).
You can read more about the winners here - https://write.iseb.co.uk/#winners
"Reading the creative writing of such a talented pool of pupils from around the world was pure enjoyment. The quality of the work was so high that we found ourselves talking about the shortlisted entries in the same way we might analyse the work of graduates and professionals. For all of us on the panel, it was a privilege to read your work and be inspired by your talent."
The review
What next?
Time to write will be bigger and better in 2025 aided by new Bulk Item Creation functionality in RM Compare - https://compare.rm.com/blog/new-bulk-item-creation/.
Full details on the 2025 competition can be found here - https://write.iseb.co.uk/