It happens that we had a group of Danish students and their teachers in school today as part of an annual exchange programme.

The teachers and I got talking, as you do, about exam systems.

If I understand the PISA figures (which, it seems, more and more people are dubious about), then Denmark’s students are about average in reading and above average in Mathematics. Certainly they were impressive today - bright, articulate interested and - as so often by guests to our country - hugely impressed by our pastoral care, our extra-curricular commitment, our facilities and - wait for it - the quality of our teaching.

It’s chiefly from within, it seems, that we’re told we’re rubbish.

But the really interesting thing was the way these Danish teachers - all veterans of their school - spoke of the way students were assessed in a universal exam, half of it written and half of it spoken. Most subjects - including Maths - have a 50% oral component in recognition that students learn and express themselves differently. This isn’t considered dumbing down.

The spoken exam is assessed by students’ own teachers, along with a visiting teacher as moderator. The written exam is marked by teachers who apply to become examiners.

All Danish teachers are sent for a few days to assess students in other parts of Denmark. It is seen as good professional development.

This, at least, is the way they explained it to me over a bountiful buffet this evening.

The twelve-point scale of the Danish exam is designed to give every student the chance to get the pass mark, but to have enough built-in granularity that high-fliers - the top 10% (but NOT fixed as a limiting quotient) to gain the top grade of 12. It’s radical, you see: judging student success by the number who pass rather than the quota who fail.

There were two striking features of our chat - first, the teachers’ complete sense of confidence in the robustness and reliability of marking - teachers don’t cheat and aren’t presumed by their government to be rampantly cheating.

Second was their astonishment at what they perceived as the prevailing lack of trust of teachers in England.

When I described the EBacc concept of yesterday’s portentous House of Commons announcement, they laughed, then wandered off to have a drink. I think they thought I was displaying some obscure facet of English humour. The conversation had ended.

But it does make you think how a Government which inherited a profession generally keen to be a part of raising standards has been made to feel quite so marginalised.

I realise for some it may actually be a badge of honour to think that that teachers are finally being put in their rightful, lowly place. But that does show a complete misunderstanding of how to get people to do things better.

And it does take some warped audacity to imagine that a major reform to exams can be trailed through the weekend media, announced with sneering contempt for the hard work of current students and their teachers, endorsed by a party that once promised us a lock-down on endless educational tinkering, introduced with no apparent consultation of teacher associations, and with no hint of having considered that a sensible, moderated system of chartered assessors (as proposed by John Dunford) might be a way of developing an assessment system done in part by teachers and not, bludgeon-like, inflicted on us.

From here in the far eastern region of England, Denmark isn’t really so far away, geographically. But philosophically, tonight, it feels a world apart.

Geoff Barton

18 September 2012

21:30