Mike O’Neill describes how one school helps its high-achieving students to win places on biomedical courses at top universities by successfully preparing them for degree course entrance examinations

A public consultation on reforming Key Stage 4 qualifications is underway, with the coalition government outlining its intention to assess the proposed replacement for GCSE, the EBC, ‘100% by externally marked examinations’. The government is of the opinion that schools and teachers ‘have concerns about the manageability of internal assessment in GCSEs (which replaced coursework in 2009) and its impact on teaching time and methods’, and that by restricting ‘the use of controlled assessment the opportunities for the malpractice associated with internal assessment such as plagiarism and the rote learning of isolated tasks’ will be reduced. We asked our discussion panel if they agree with the government, or if they believe controlled assessment has a valuable place in some or all subjects

Julie Southern summarises the wealth of research into the impact of Assessment for Learning and Learning To Learn on personalised learning