Assessing practical work in science – a panel discussion

This public seminar will be given by representatives from two awarding bodies for A-levels and GCSEs in England: OCR and AQA.

Each will give their perspective on the following:
• the challenges of assessing practical work
• the opportunities afforded by the current system and some of the remaining difficulties
• how they would choose to assess practical work, and indeed assess science in general, if they could design an assessment system from scratch.

This seminar arose from discussions at the Royal Society educational research conference on assessing experimental science in 11-18 education October 2016, and will endeavour to engage with some of the principles and intellectual challenges of assessment, as well as the pragmatics. A response will be given by Dr Sean Page, Head of Science at Lord Williams’s School, Thame, Oxon.