Blog
Posts for category: Opinion
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Mobley vs Workday – an update on the case that is challenging AI assessment
Derek Mobley, an IT professional who turned to digital hiring platforms after being laid off from his job. Over nine months he submitted well over 100 applications through Workday‑powered portals and, despite being qualified, received no interviews or offers. When he realised that even the rejection emails were being generated by bots, he began to suspect that automated screening, not human judgement, was keeping him out.
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Back to the Future: Rethinking Assessment in a World of Uncertainty
In 1792, revolutionaries in Paris abolished a king, Americans calmly re‑elected a president, and Cambridge quietly invented something that still shapes millions of lives every year: exam marking. While politics and industry were being rebuilt in public, assessment was being rebuilt on paper. Two centuries later, we are still living inside that decision – and only now starting to see its limits.
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How reliable are GCSE grades – and what can we do about it?
Every year in England, some things in education feel almost guaranteed. Exam season will arrive on schedule, bringing with it the familiar mix of anxiety, hope and hard work in schools up and down the country. Ofqual will emphasise that our qualifications system is robustly designed, closely regulated and delivering grades that are fair and can be trusted. And Dennis Sherwood will publish fresh analysis arguing – drawing largely on Ofqual’s own technical reports – that neither the level of fairness nor the level of trust we assume is quite what it seems.
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Reimagining Assessment in an AI World: How the RM Compare Ecosystem Supports Global Insights.
The latest OECD Reimagining Teaching in an Accelerating World report makes one thing very clear: teaching and assessment can’t stay as they are. As AI reshapes what students can do with a few prompts, the things that are easiest to test have become the easiest to automate. Systems everywhere are being pushed to value richer learning, trust professionals more, and treat AI as an educational ally rather than a threat.
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Post‑16 pathways reform: three assessment questions AOs and providers need to answer now
The government’s post‑16 Level 3 and below reforms are no longer abstract policy; they are now a concrete redesign of the 16–19 landscape. A Levels, T Levels, new V Levels and two reformed Level 2 pathways will replace a crowded field of overlapping qualifications. In that world, assessment quality, standards and progression evidence stop being technical details and become existential questions for awarding organisations and providers.
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What Might an Appeals Process Look Like with RM Compare?
This post sketches what a fair, defensible appeals process can look like when RM Compare sits at the heart of grading. The short version is that appeals do not disappear; they become more transparent and more evidence‑rich, because every judgement and every decision point is logged.
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Workload, Grades and Transparency: Why ACJ Needs a Different Starting Point
When ACJ is judged by rubric‑first assumptions, it will always look like a poor imitation of traditional marking: more judgements, awkward grade mapping, fewer boxes ticked. If we instead start from its own epistemology - holistic, relative, expert judgement as the primary evidence of quality - then workload becomes a design and scheduling question, not an intrinsic flaw.
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What does a four‑year‑old Clumber Spaniel named Bruin have in common with Olympic breakdancing and modern examinations?
On the surface, nothing at all. Bruin is a gentle, long‑backed gundog who has just trotted his way to Best in Show at Crufts, padding calmly down the famous green carpet while the NEC holds its breath. Breakers will spin and freeze their way across an Olympic floor to pounding music. Examiners sit alone with stacks of scripts and detailed mark schemes. Three very different worlds, three very different kinds of performance.
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Newsletter March 2026
For this edition we have produced a couple of series focusing on two critical considerations in the world of assessment, and education more generally. The 'AI World' is moving fast and finding time for necessary thinking and consideration has never been more important.