OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment Contents in Education Chapter 1. Schooling in Northern Ireland Chapter 2. Evaluation and assessment framework Chapter 3. Student assessment NORTHERN IRELAND, Chapter 4. Teacher appraisal Chapter 5. School evaluation UNITED KINGDOM OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education Chapter 6. System evaluation Claire Shewbridge, Marian Hulshof, Deborah Nusche and Lars Stenius Staehr www.oecd.org/edu/evaluationpolicy NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM UNITED IRELAND, NORTHERN Consult this publication on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264207707-en. This work is published on the OECD iLibrary, which gathers all OECD books, periodicals and statistical databases. Visit www.oecd-ilibrary.org for more information. ISBN 978-92-64-20769-1 91 2013 10 1 P 9HSTCQE*cahgjb+ OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Northern Ireland, United Kingdom Claire Shewbridge, Marian Hulshof, Deborah Nusche and Lars Stenius Staehr This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Please cite this publication as: Shewbridge, C. et al. (2014), OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264207707-en ISBN 978-92-64-20769-1 (print) ISBN 978-92-64-20770-7 (PDF) Series: OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education ISSN 2223-0947 (print) ISSN 2223-0955 (online) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. Photo credits: Cover © iQoncept - Fotolia.com, © AKS - Fotolia.com, © Sergej Khackimullin - Fotolia.com. Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda. © OECD 2014 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of the source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected]. Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d'exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) at [email protected]. FOREWORD – 3 Foreword This report for Northern Ireland forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes (see Annex A). The purpose of the Review is to explore how systems of evaluation and assessment can be used to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of school education. The Review looks at pupil assessment, teacher appraisal, school leader appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation, and how these help to improve pupils’ learning. Northern Ireland’s involvement in the OECD Review was co-ordinated by Karen McCullough at the Standards and Improvement Team, Department of Education. Northern Ireland opted to participate in the country review strand of the international project and host a visit by an external review team. Members of the OECD review team were Claire Shewbridge (OECD Secretariat), co-ordinator of the review; Marian Hulshof (programme manager of Research and Development within the Dutch Inspectorate of Education, Netherlands); Deborah Nusche (OECD Secretariat); and Lars Stenius Staehr (Project Manager at Novo Nordisk and testing consultant for the Danish Ministry of Education, Denmark) (see Annex C). This publication is the report from the OECD review team. It provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework in Northern Ireland, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. The report serves three purposes: (1) provide insights and advice to the Northern Ireland authorities; (2) help other OECD countries understand Northern Ireland's approach; and (3) improve the international knowledge on evaluation and assessment policies. Although the final comparative report of the project was published in April 2013, evidence collected and analysis conducted during the review visit to Northern Ireland fed into the international report. An important part of Northern Ireland’s involvement was the preparation of a Country Background Report (CBR) on evaluation and assessment policy developed by Carl Savage and Dale Heaney at the Department of Education. The OECD review team is grateful to the authors and to all those who assisted them for compiling a high quality and informative report as background to the review and analysis. The CBR is an important output from the OECD project in its own right as well as an important source for the OECD review team. Unless indicated otherwise, the data for this report are taken from the Northern Ireland CBR. The CBR follows guidelines prepared by the OECD Secretariat and provides extensive information, analysis and discussion in regard to the national context, the organisation of the school system, the main features of the evaluation and assessment framework and the views of key stakeholders. In this sense, the CBR and this report complement each other and, for a more comprehensive view of evaluation and assessment in Northern Ireland, should be read in conjunction. The review visit to Northern Ireland took place between 26 February and 5 March 2013. The itinerary is provided in Annex B. The visit was designed by the OECD in collaboration with the Department of Education. During the review visit, the team held discussions with a wide range of officials within the Department of Education, including OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM © OECD 2014 4 – FOREWORD the Education and Training Inspectorate; the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment; school support providers; teacher educators; teacher and school principal representatives; civil society organisations; and researchers with an interest in evaluation and assessment issues. The team also visited a range of schools, interacting with representatives of the Board of Governors, school leadership, teachers, students and parents in Belfast and its surrounds and also in Derry. The intention was to provide a broad cross-section of information and opinions on evaluation and assessment policies and how their effectiveness can be improved. The OECD review team wishes to express its sincere gratitude to all those who took time to meet with us and to share their insights. Our overwhelming memory is of a warm welcome wherever we went and frank, open, constructive and stimulating discussions. We wish to thank the Department of Education for meeting our challenging demands to organise a review visit that allowed us to learn different perspectives from many different stakeholders (see Annex B). In particular, we warmly thank Karen McCullough, Katrina Godfrey, Suzanne Kingon and Paul McAllister for accompanying us at different stages of the review, making sure that everything ran like clockwork and allowing us to concentrate on learning from the people we met. The courtesy and hospitality extended to us throughout our stay in Northern Ireland made our task as a review team as pleasant and enjoyable as it was stimulating and challenging. In particular, during the OECD review, we asked all stakeholders to provide us with information and evidence on assessment and evaluation practices in Northern Ireland. We wish to extend particular thanks to all those who chose to do so and to send research and information on practices to us during and after the review visit. This vast information base formed a rich resource and helped the OECD review team to develop a deeper understanding of evaluation and assessment in Northern Ireland. While our report may not refer explicitly to some of this material, it was invaluable in underpinning our initial analysis. Any misunderstandings or misinterpretations are entirely our responsibility. The OECD review team is also grateful to Liz Zachary for editorial and publication support on this report and to Heike-Daniela Herzog for administrative support. This report is organised in six chapters. Chapter 1 provides the national context, with information on Northern Ireland’s school system, main trends and concerns, and recent developments. Chapter 2 looks at the overall evaluation and assessment framework and analyses how the different components of the framework play together and can be made more coherent to effectively improve student learning. Chapters 3 to 6 present each of the components of the evaluation and assessment framework – pupil assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation and