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 September, in which stakeholders could submit their views online, and latterly the panel have been conducting regional roadshow events around the country. 

We’ve managed to get along to a couple of these events and we wanted to break down for you our reflections on what happened, what was said and whether there were any clues as to direction-of-travel next.

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!

An extended version of our chat can be found on The Exam Man channels:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3w7fux47

Apple: https://tinyurl.com/ykme3xtr

Website: https://theexamman.com/episode/obsessed-with-assessment

We love to hear listener comments. If there is no function for leaving a message on your podcast platform of choice, then you can always email us at assessment@twinkl.co.uk. Please also like and subscribe.

Sam Denno can be found on x.com.

What are formative and summative assessment and when should we be using them in classroom practice? Sam and Paul share their research findings in this 15-minute CPD podcast.

Let us know your thoughts and ideas for future episodes by emailing us at assessment@twinkl.co.uk. And to read the blog that accompanies this podcast, click here.

This week, Sam and Paul take a look at what assessment might look like in the future. Are we on cusp of a classroom revolution in the UK?

If you've got a view on the issues in this episode, or you want to share your ideas for other episodes, email us on assessment@twinkl.co.uk. And if you'd like to read our accompanying blog, check it out here.

How did our obsession with exams, tests and data start, and what does it tell us about current practice? Sam and Paul dive into the fundamentals in their 15-minute CPD podcast.

Got some feedback on this episode or want to share some ideas? Email us on assessment@twinkl.co.uk. And if you'd like to read the blog that accompanies this episode, check it out here.

What are the realities of classroom assessment? How do we keep it effective without making our workload excessive? Find out with assessment experts Sam and Paul in this 15-minute CPD podcast from Twinkl.

Got a point of view to share or an idea for a podcast episode? Email us on assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

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 distributed practice, before squishing them together and offering the most potent solution to students' revision woes!

We'd love to hear your thoughts. You can leave a comment on some podcast platforms, or you can email the show at assessment@twinkl.co.uk. Don't forget to like and subscribe.

Sam Denno can be found on x.com.

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.

Sam Denno is joined by new co-host, Emma Louise Rose-McHale, in the first of three episodes in which they explore the education system in Denmark, and specifically the way that assessment is used. They consider the advantages of the Danish methods, and how they differ to England. You can read the associated blog here: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/blog/obsessed-with-assessment-what-can-we-learn-from-denmark

You can also email Obsessed with Assessment at assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

Don't forget to like and subscribe if you find this episode helpful.

This week, Sam and Paul take a deep dive into data! Just how much should we rely on data when it comes to assessment? You can read the associated blog here: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/blog/assessment-what-are-the-limitations-of-data

If you have an assessment anecdote or an idea for an episode, drop us an email on assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

This week, Sam and Paul discuss the justice behind assessment: is it ever possible to be completely fair to all students within an assessment framework? You can find more information on our associated blog: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/blog/are-exams-inherently-unfair

And remember, you can email us with your thoughts on assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

Is assessment the answer to all our classroom woes? Or does it have its limitations? Paul and Sam talk over the issue in their latest episode.

If you have an assessment experience to share, email us on assessment@twinkl.co.uk. And don't forget to read this week's blog, here.

How does tech affect assessment? Is it a help, or a hindrance? Paul and Sam take a look at the realities in this week's episode,

To read the blog that accompanies this podcast, click here. And if you've got an idea for a future episode, email us at assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

Mindfulness is all the rage, but what does it really mean in a classroom context? Paul and Sam look at ways in which assessment can be truly mindful, without just paying lipservice to the concept.

To read this episode's accompanying blog, click here. And if you've got an idea for a future episode, email us at assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

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 brighter future. Most pertinently, they outline approaches and strategies that classroom teachers and school leaders could (and should) be implementing as part of their day to day.

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. These Nordic countries are mentioned in relation to intergenerational pay gap persistence. You can find more details in the associated blog on the Twinkl website: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/blog/obsessed-with-assessment-what-can-we-learn-from-finland

You can also email the show at assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

Please like and subscribe and feel free to leave comments.

Sam can be found on x.com as SamDenno_Twinkl

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 feelings do spill out occasionally! There is no associated blog with this episode, but if you want to go back and look at our Denmark and Finland blogs you can find them at their respective links.

You can email the show at assessment@twinkl.co.uk, or you can like subscribe or leave a comment on the platform that you listen to podcasts on.

Sam can be found on x.com.

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 upon the challenges of aligning educational requirements with governmental limitations, and considers the role that assessment plays in the whole conversation.

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 window into the England education system at the highest levels and as pedagogical guidance for teachers and school leaders.

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 deliberately kept a secret (it's not!), which is why, in this episode of Obsessed with Assessment podcast, Sam and Emma have to don their very best sleuthing gear in order to get to the bottom of the mysteries of the National Reference Test and shine a light on it for all listeners. Prepare to have your eyes opened! Or, if your school has been one of the selected few in the past, email us at assessment@twinkl.co.uk and tell us all about your experiences.

Obsessed with Assessment podcast is produced by the team at Twinkl and led by assessment thought leader, Sam Denno. You can find Sam on BlueSky and LinkedIn.

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 blog here: https://substack.nomoremarking.com/p/designing-the-perfect-assessment

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?

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 suggest some key takeaways that educators could embed in their practice.

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.

Subscribe to the podcast to get notifications of new episodes as soon as they drop. You can email the show at assessment@twinkl.co.uk. Find Sam Denno, Twinkl's National Assessment Lead on LinkedIn and BlueSky. Dr MIck Walker is the president of the Chartered Institute of Education Assessors, who run a series of courses on educational assessment.

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 teacher practice.

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 MacDonald (Secondary Maths Lead) and Emma Rose-McHale (STEM Team Leader) chew over the reasons behind the gender gap and offer solutions to teachers seeking to address it. The March 2025 TIMSS report can be found here.

Like and subcribe. Contact the show on assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

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 educators and members of wider society. The full report can be found in the British Journal of Educational Psychology here. Lewis is a post-doctoral researcher at the Université de Poitiers and a visiting researcher at the University of Sussex. He has a particular interest in how social psychological processes contribute to educational outcomes and prejudice. He belongs to a group of psychologists calling themselves the School Inclusion Group who carry out research in order to understand and combat educational inequalities.

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 Denno is the host of Obsessed with Assessment and is also the National Assessment Lead at Twinkl Educational Publishing.

James Beadle is a Senior Professional Development Manager at The Assessment Network, an arm of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Tell us what you think about the concepts that are discussed by emailing on assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

"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 ensure that we are optimising the functionality of both forms.

Sam Denno is the National Assessment Lead at Twinkl Educational Publishing. James Beadle is a Senior Professional Development Manager at The Assessment Network, an arm of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Further reading: https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/blogs/what-and-why-do-we-assess-in-the-classroom/

You can contact the show using the email address assessment@twinkl.co.uk.

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@twinkl.co.uk.

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 the benefits of comparative judgement - can she win Sam over? Moreover, how convinced are you by the concept?

You can get in touch with the show on assessment@twinkl.co.uk, and you can seek Sam Denno out on BlueSky and LinkedIn.

If you want to know more about the work that Daisy Christodoulou does, then you can visit her blog here and the No More Marking website here.

Daisy references the original calculations of Louis Thurstone which represent the foundation of comparative judgement. If you're interested in these then you can find them here.

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 most important assessment takeaways that they picked up along their journey? All this and more, as we wish farewell to the greatest educational assessment podcast there will ever be.

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 assessment. Not only does the concept tackle the issue of post-16 resits, it also addresses several other potential frustrations in the present system.

Want to join the OCR Maths Advisory Panel? Submit your interest here. You can find Sam Denno on LinkedIn and BlueSky.