Obsessed with Assessment

After 10 months and 35 episodes, Obsessed with Assessment is drawing to a close. Sam Denno is moving to a new role at Twinkl Educational Publishing and his focus will no longer be purely on assessment, so he signs off, along with co-host Emma Rose-McHale, with a fittingly lively conversation about top learnings from past episodes. What were Emma and Sam's favourite episodes? And, what are the...

Sam Denno, assessment lead at Twinkl Educational Publishing, is joined by OCR representatives, Sarah Gotting and Amy Jones, in discussing the negative spiral created by post-16 GCSE Maths resits. They talk through the problem, before Sarah and Amy present OCR's possible solution to the current pattern. OCR are proposing a new-look GCSE as part of the national conversation around curriculum and...

James Beadle becomes only the second podcast guest to make a repeat visit, as he brings his wisdom to bear on the issue of assessment literacy. He argues that all stakeholders in the assessment process - including teachers, students and parents - should have some degree of understanding of the way that assessments work. Everyone could listen into this podcast as a trememdous starting point! Sam De...

"All assessment should be formative, even when it's summative" - so went the wisdom of Obsessed with Assessment host, Sam Denno. His guest in this episode, James Beadle, is here to unpick all of that and add some additional nuance. James considers the purposes of formative and summative assessment respectively, what they set out to achieve, and how we can use intelligent questioning to...

Sam and Emma go to work on assessment validity, poring over the research of Prof Keith Topping to consider everything teachers need to bear in mind when setting both formative and summative tests. If our assessment is invalid then there is little point in doing it, so it is worth giving thought to this area. We love to hear your feedback and comments, like and subscribe or email us at assessment@t...

Sam Denno sits down with Daisy Christodoulou, Director of Education at No More Marking and author of Seven Myths About Education, to get to grips with another assessment concept. Comparative judgement is a means of testing student work without the need for a complex rubric and offers an efficient and reliable means of marking, particularly when it comes to writing. Daisy speaks passionately about...

Sam Denno and Emma Rose-McHale are back. This time they are exploring self assessment and gauging its effectiveness, backed up by their reading of research by various educational experts. Is self assessment a valuable mechanism in the teacher toolbox, or a waste-of-time gimmick? Sam and Emma consider all of the pros and cons and offer up advice for how it can be embedded most effectively into teac...

Sam Denno is joined by three STEM specialists in order to discuss the alarming TIMSS pupil characteristics report published in March 2025. TIMSS data reveals that the difference between boy and girl attainment in the assessment is "statistically significant" and is the widest gap of any participating country over the last 20 years. Twinkl leaders, Sally Cole (Digital Maths Lead), Sapphire...

The Obsessed with Assessment duo dig into the research behind peer assessment, determining its value as a teaching and learning tool. They explore when and when not to use peer assessment. and propose important variables that teachers should bear in mind in order to implement it as effectively as possible.

In this episode we talk to Dr Lewis Doyle about unconscious biases, particularly when it comes to marking and assessment. In a groundbreaking study in 2022, Lewis and his team asked 400 teachers to mark the same piece of work but provided different pupil contexts to the teachers before they began. The results were fascinating. Lewis talks about the research and what we can learn from it as both ed...

Our conversation with Dr Mick Walker takes a turn towards CPD as we consider ways in which teachers should be judged, what we need to do to make a lesson observation a positive experience and how to go about spreading knowledge and sharing best practice. Mick is as engaging as ever in this thought-provoking chat. Afterwards, hosts Sam Denno and Emma Rose-McHale reflect on the key takeaways. Subscr...

Assessment specialist Dr Mick Walker of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors joins us again to talk about creating effective assessments. Via an insightful anecdote, Mick brings to light the importance of language in our questioning and discusses why we need to always have our pupils in mind when designing our tests. After the conversation, Sam Denno and Emma Rose-McHale debrief and su...

As we await a spring-time report on the Curriculum and Assessment Review and the progress that Becky Francis and her panel are making, Sam Denno sits down with Dr Mick Walker of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors to discuss his experience of working on curriculum design in the past, and how he feels about the current process. Mick articulates both pessimism and hope as he reflects up...

Sam and Emma dig into Ofsted's 3rd February press release, in which they launched brand new information about their incoming framework proposals and, in particular, their much talked about school report cards. What is Sam enthusiastic about, and what does Emma make faces at?

Sam Denno of Obsessed with Assessment caught up with Dr Mick Walker to conduct a fascinating conversation on numerous aspects of educational assessment. In the first of a collection of episodes, we explore Mick's experiences of working at the cutting edge of curriculum and assessment design via his roles with the National Curriculum Council and the QCA. Mick's insights are invaluable as a...

The National Reference Test (NRT) is a mandatory annual test administered by Ofqual and the NFER, that is delivered to a random sample of Y11 pupils. The format of the NRT is a fascinating departure from the GCSE formula, meaning that the resulting data offers the government some compelling considerations. The thing is, very few people know about the NRT! It's almost like it's being delibe...

Follow our fascinating discussion as we dissect Daisy Christodoulou's blog on the purposes of assessments. Are we trying to do too much when we attempt to achieve formative, summative, accountability and national standards functions all within the same tests? Naturally, the answer is yes, but what can classroom teachers do to address this in the day-to-day? You can read Christodoulou's blo...

Sam and Emma get to work distinguishing their relative grading from their absolute grading and ponder where scaled scoring fits within all of that, in this concept-almanac of an Obsessed with Assessment episode. But, which one is the most effective?

In their third and final episode on Denmark, Finland and Norway, Sam and Emma consider the advantages and disadvantages of these Nordic education systems, as compared with English education. Could we adopt their methods wholesale, and would we actually want to? There are lots of questions to answer and Sam and Emma do their level best to approach them in a balanced manner, although some strong fee...

In the second of three podcasts in which Sam and Emma explore assessment in a collection of Nordic countries, they turn their attention to Finland, considering its education system, before comparing the differences to testing in England. These episodes are a response to the mention of Denmark, Finland and Norway on the Labour government's Breaking Down the Barrier to Opportunity manifesto. The...

In the second Obsessed with Assessment episode on assessment in the news, Sam and Emma take a look at the National Audit Office's (NAO) damning report from October on the government's SEN strategy since 2014. Our hosts dig into the poor handling of children with additional needs in mainstream schooling, and look ahead to the potential for the Curriculum and Assessment review to offer a bri...

The Curriculum and Assessment Review for England is well upon us. The newly elected Labour government stipulated that they wanted to deliver a “A broader, richer, cutting-edge curriculum that drives high and rising schools standards and sets all young people up for life and work”. They appointed an expert panel to lead the review in August 2024, this was followed by a “call for evidence” in Septem...

Sam welcomes his first ever guests onto Obsessed with Assessment podcast, hoping to go deeper still into the world of testing. John and Sophie bring their experience of working within the English exam system to offer insights aplenty. Most importantly, Sam is finally able to address the elephant in the room - The Exam Man's claim of being the number 1 exams and assessment podcast in the world!...

Sam and Emma dig into some learning and revision techniques that could offer students the means to enhance their grade outcomes. For real? They certainly think so, and they've been convinced by authors such as Jonathan Firth and Dr John Dunlovsky - both educators and psychologists - who provide ample evidence that these ideas should be taken seriously. OwA unpack retrieval practice and distrib...

In what represents a brand new strand for Obsessed with Assessment podcast, we throw ourselves at the latest educational assessment news. Here, we look at Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson's talk to trust leaders on November 7th 2024 and carry out an analysis of all of the highlights, focusing, as is our wont on the implications for assessment in the UK.