The Exam Man

In this special pre - exam season episode, we chew the fat about all things exams with super experienced Exams Officer Linsey Armstrong-Smith. Linsey shares how she found her way into her current role at Shiplake College in Oxfordshire, what she thinks are the skills and mindset needed to thrive in the role, as well as what she loves and finds challenging about working in exams. We also dig into h...

Welcome to a special Christmas episode of The Exam Man, in collaboration with JCQ, In this festive episode, John and Sophie are joined by none other than Margaret Farragher, Chief Executive Officer of JCQ. Margaret is an experienced and respected leader across the public, private and voluntary sectors, with an impressive career dedicated to helping to ensure that students and schools have the very...

To usher in GCSE results week, John and Sophie spent a delightful half hour chatting to Jennifer Halpin, Exams Team Leader at David Ross Education Trust, for a special summer episode of The Exam Man. In her role, Jen supports exams officers across the 11 secondaries at DRET, a team which includes one exams officer with 20 years' experience and also exams officers who are brand new to the role.&nbs...

SPECIAL EPISODE of The Exam Man is here! Such a pleasure to speak to Amanda Swann , Executive Director at Ofqual , about the imminent summer exam series and the role of Ofqual - with information aplenty, helpful tips, timely reminders, and uplifting messages of appreciation for those in charge of running exams in schools. Wishing everyone the very best for the next couple of months see you on the...

Celebrating One Whole Entire Year of The Exam Man! How to create a podcast... and what we've learned. The Exam Man podcast- despite originally being planned as a scrappy six- week event for the summer exam season- somehow reaches its first anniversary this week! Over the past year, thousands of colleagues around the world have tuned in every week to listen, learn, and connect. From episodes on eve...

This week on The Exam Man podcast we swing from talking about South Korea's all-in attitude to exams to transforming the exam system- should we? Could we, even if we wanted to? Lisa Greenslade joins us to talk about her experience of transforming at scale in higher education exams. To subscribe to Examscreen go to: Examscreen To read more about the work of TEAMCo- teamcouk.com Find out more about...

Exams and employability- do exams prepare young people for the many decades following school? This week we are joined by Oli de Botton, the CEO of The Careers & Enterprise Company – the national body for careers education- to talk everything exams and employability. We had a great chat all about the purpose of exams, and what employers want and need from an assessment system. Oli draws on his...

How do you keep your exams officer? One of the most enlightening and entertaining things about running The Exam Man over the last year has been hearing all about how people have fallen into running exams, and what they were doing before. We've heard from a former Met police officer on the podcast, a tax officer... and someone who once crossed the Alps on a space hopper! Once exams officers are in...

This week, we are- rather predictably for The Exam Man- digging into exams- but this week, with a particular focus on assessment for students with SEND. John and Sophie dig into why access arrangements and extra time have recently made the headlines. With insights from Vicki Clayson, a former SENCO and Deputy Headteacher and an Education Consultant for iTrack Education about the importance of trac...

Nick Gibb joins John Gaston and Sophie Gaston for a far-reaching chat, spanning the freedoms that come after 27 years in the House of Commons, his career highlights, the reasons he wanted to work in education, how many schools he personally visited whilst in office, and how he thinks AI may impact exams and education. As one of the key figures in education policy over the past two decades, who ser...

Understanding how exams run in prisons has been something that John and Sophie have wanted to cover on The Exam Man since the podcast began. It's taken a few months of conversations, approvals and sign offs, and we are delighted to launch Season 3 with a hugely thought- provoking interview with the Exams Officer at HMP Norwich. Geraldine Jozefiak has worked in the prison for the past 9 years, and...

Well, that’s a wrap for The Exam Man- for Season 2 and for 2024! Our year as weekly podcasters deep diving into everything exams was a fun one for sure. Plenty more to come in 2025, when we will launch Season 3 with a bang in February, but for now it’s definitely time for some R&R. Today we sign off with reflections on what we’ve learned over the last year- about exams, of course, but als...

Metacognition is, essentially, thinking about one's thinking. This is certainly a pretty important skill for students as they approach exams, as well as for the people preparing them for them. In this week's episode, we speak to someone who fortunately has a more comprehensive explanation than us, and who tells us all about metacognition and its role in exams, assessment and revision.  N...

It's been a big week for big chats about the move from pen-and-paper to digital exams, with several news articles describing the acceleration of online assessments and the plan for rollout by 2030. In response, there has been lots of discussion about the need for a cautious approach and plenty of questions about the infrastructure and cost implications. This week we delve into the debate, the pros...

On the request of The Exam Man listeners, this week's episode involves John running through the practical steps he takes to plan for a public exam season. Certainly niche, definitely technical, and helpful for exams teams both new and experienced. Over to a particularly animated John, to convince the audience that planning exams is an art, not a science, and actually very exciting... Do follow and...

Lovely little collaboration on The Exam Man this week as we join forces with the mighty Sam Denno, Educational Assessment Leader at Twinkl. Sam runs the brilliant Obsessed with Assessment podcast, which covers all aspects of classroom assessment in bite- size, 15- minutes- long CPD sessions. Despite our shared fascination with all things exams and assessment, Obsessed with Assessment is everything...

To celebrate the 30th episode of The Exam Man, we have brought you a technical episode for true assessment aficionados. Channeling his Data Man alter ego, John takes us on a deep dive into school performance measures and the role of exams. Super useful for exams teams, teachers, school leaders and anyone who doesn't quite understand how to work out how their local school is actually doing. This on...

On The Exam Man podcast this week we are joined by Lord Jim Knight, a leader and advisor across a variety of areas such as education, technology, international schools, assessment, and teacher engagement. His many current hats include being a member of the UK House of Lords, Chair of @COBIS, Chair of E-Act, on the Nord Anglia Education Advisory Board, and on the qualifications committee for Pearso...

One for the exams team as the second half of the Autumn team dawns... It feels like a safe distance from May to discuss the most critical time of an exams officers' year- the summer exam period. As most of the UK population enjoys Easter holidays and long, sunny Spring days, students and exams teams are knuckling down preparing for public exams across the country. John explains what he does to bot...

This week on The Exam Man podcast we go stateside (only virtually, sadly) to chat to Kelly Frindell, PhD - Test Prep Expert (SSAT/ISEE/SAT/ACT) from her home in Hawaii. We were keen to learn more (anything!) about exams in the USA. Kelly gave us a whistle-stop tour of what exams pupils sit in the US, when and where they are optional (!), how they are administered, and the current challenges and op...

FROM THE SECURE ROOM: John talking about getting started as an exams officer- and his own 'unusual' introduction to the role - on the latest edition of The Exam Man podcast will resonate with many. With practical top tips for newbies to the role and experienced exams teams alike, enjoy this opportunity to take comfort/ learnings from his reflections on 13 years in the role and **many** early mista...

Next up on The Exam Man we have Daniel Walton - Smith, to get the lowdown on exams in primary schools. The Deputy Headteacher of a 2-form primary school on the Wirral- Prenton Primary- Dan also sits on The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) Expert Panelist for the Department for Education. As part of his DfE role Dan works on the Key Stage1 reading panel, where he analyses potential future SATs te...

FROM THE SECURE ROOM is a series of short episodes where John explains how he carries out a specific aspect of running exams. Today, our bonus episode is all about running mock exams. Also unexpectedly featuring our first ever poem, written and submitted by an exams officer in the East Midlands! FROM THE SECURE ROOM episodes are particularly useful for exams officers new and old. Do email us any i...

We all know that universities run exams, naturally. Yet most of us, even if we work in exams, wouldn't have a clue how it all works. In this week's episode, John and Sophie are joined by Karen Williams & Jess Price, Exams Managers at King's College London, to answer John's many, many questions about exams in universities! We hear about the staggering scale of the operation, the main difference...

Ever wondered what Examscreen does, and how it came into existence? Due to popular request, on this week's episode of The Exam Man podcast, John Gaston and Sophie Gaston talk about the background to Examscreen. They retell the story of how John's frustration with schools using big, expensive clocks and PowerPoints in exam halls led to a summer learning how to code, a seriously dramatic launch day,...