This week I presented some work on KS3 Drama assessment to academic leadership and heads of department, alongside a colleague who was presenting on KS4 and KS5. What was useful was the shared thinking across the key stages: the strongest assessment comes from regular evidence over time, not from placing too much weight on one performance or one test.
That idea has shaped the KS3 Drama framework I have been developing.
The focus has been on building an approach to assessment that is accurate, manageable and part of normal classroom practice. The aim is not to create more assessment points, but to improve the quality of information available to teachers and students through clearer structures, common language and regular formative feedback.
That matters because assessment does more than record outcomes. It shapes what we pay attention to in the classroom, what we value, and what students come to understand as success in a subject.
In Drama, progress is not best understood through a single final outcome. It is seen over time in how students develop their knowledge, sharpen their choices, work with others, respond to feedback and reflect on their work with increasing clarity. Any assessment model needs to be able to recognise that.
The framework brings together a KS3 progression model for skills, techniques and knowledge; a rubric built around Collaboration, Voice, Physicality, Techniques and Conventions, and Reflecting; target codes; and learning checks within each unit. Final judgements are informed by this wider picture, drawing on ongoing AfL and formative assessment as well as the learning check itself.
What this work has reinforced for me is that rigour in assessment does not come from making individual tasks feel higher stakes. It comes from clarity, consistency and professional judgement over time. It comes from being precise about what matters in the subject and designing assessment in a way that helps students improve.
That feels especially important as schools continue to think carefully about the kinds of learning that will matter most in the years ahead: interpretation, judgement, collaboration, communication and reflection. These are not extras. They sit at the centre of a strong education, and they deserve to be taught and assessed with care.
For heads of department and curriculum leaders, this is part of a wider conversation about assessment design across subjects: how we build systems that are rigorous, useful and sustainable, and how we make sure assessment supports learning rather than sitting apart from it.
It was a pleasure to contribute to that conversation this week.
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