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Exams and Accountability in 2021

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as recorded in the register. As we all know, continuing to assert something that is, at best, contentious does not make it true, and so it is with the assertion that exams are the best form of assessment. Our colleagues in Scotland took the wise decision some months ago to cancel the 16-plus exams—the equivalent of GCSEs—in favour of teacher assessment, and my noble friend has already referred to the situation in Wales. A major study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2019 found that teacher assessment during compulsory education is as reliable as formal external exams. Research from 2019 also shows that GCSEs heap stress on to school students in what we might call “normal times”; clearly we are not in normal times. I wonder therefore if the Minister can answer a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, as quoted in the Guardian. He pointed out that

“the school leaving age is 18 … Education goes on from four to 18. So what are you testing people at 16 for?”

I might add that the question is especially pertinent this year when a level playing field both between and within schools is clearly an impossibility, given the

very significant but differential levels of absence from school that have occurred, and which the Minister has acknowledged.