Following on from Update 2 at the end of October and English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.’s decision to move all UK-based assessments to a remote, online delivery, ESB International has now taken the decision to extend this until the end of December, 2020.
At times like these, we understand that community is more important than ever and out of respect, we will not be sending any of our assessors to centres. ESB International assessments will continue to take place remotely, using the video conferencing facility that centres habitually use and one that your learners are used to.
We have already offered this adaptation in the summer and autumn, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. The assessor conducts and assesses the learners’ assessment in real-time and the assessment has the same content and procedure as face to face assessments.
Detailed information about each qualification, how we are adapting it, and what centres and learners need to do to prepare for remote assessments, when assessments cannot be held in person with the assessor coming to the centre, are set out in the guidance documents below.
Any questions centre staff may have about these guidance documents or delivering adapted assessments, please email product@esbuk.org
We are ready when centres return in the New Year to offer face to face assessments again or if there are local restrictions in place, to continue to offer adapted assessments. So again, you can be confident of continuing to prepare your learners for their assessments in the spring and summer terms.
Not only do our qualifications build learners’ confidence and boost progression and employability, they are built with our learners’ interests at heart, ensuring an enjoyable learning experience.
Tina Renshaw Chief Executive English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.
From the 2nd November until 2nd December 2020, ESB International assessments will take place remotely, using the video-conferencing facility that your centre habitually uses and that your learners are used to. We have already offered this adaptation in the summer, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. The assessor conducts and assesses the learners’ assessment in real-time and the assessment has the same content and procedure as face-to-face assessments.
From the 2nd November until 2nd December 2020, ESB International assessments will take place remotely, using the video-conferencing facility that your centre habitually uses and that your learners are used to. We have already offered this adaptation in the summer, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. The assessor conducts and assesses the learners’ assessment in real-time and the assessment has the same content and procedure as face-to-face assessments.
Detailed information about each qualification, how we are adapting it, and what centres and learners need to do to prepare are set out in the guidance documents below.
The value of offering assessment as part of learners’ oracy journeys was discussed at a meeting between Emma Hardy MP, Chair of the Oracy All Party Parliamentary Group and Tina Renshaw, English Speaking Board’s Chief Executive, this week.
Following on from submitting ESB’s written evidence to the Oracy APPG, Tina Renshaw was delighted to take the opportunity to meet with the Chair to showcase the benefits of ESB’s unique assessment methodology as part of the larger debate on Oracy.
Joining the meeting were two Trustees of ESB, bringing their perspectives as educational practitioners of providing oracy assessments in disadvantaged areas of the UK. They were Avril Newman, Headteacher of London’s Sir William Borough Primary School, a state primary school serving the local communities of Tower Hamlets and Julia Ward, Managing Director of the South West’s Articulacy.
Tina says: “We offer our learners fantastic confidence building experiences to demonstrate the skills that they’ve developed in speaking and listening or oracy, and we do this through assessment. For many learners to have an adult (our assessor) listen to them, to what they have to say and to how they listen to their peers, to acknowledge and reward their work and effort is a singular and affirming experience.
“ESB is an exciting opportunity and there’s not many times when learners come out of an assessment and say, ‘Can I do that again please?’. Our learners do, not because they thought they have done it wrong, but because they loved it! So, we believe it is a unique contribution in improving learners’ oracy skills.
“To really understand the value of ESB’s assessment methodology, you need to see it; to hear about the confidence that assessments bring, the enjoyment of actually participating in the assessment and the validation to so many learners that they have achieved!”
Sir William Burrough Primary School’s “You Can Do It” programme keeps pupils’ levels of confidence and resilience high, something ESB strongly supports. Its classrooms are consistently alive with energy, passion and inspiration. The school has been completing ESB assessments for many years as it recognises the improvement in its pupils’ self-confidence and communication skills.
Says Avril: “ESB assessments have been a great gift to our school. They give our pupils a structure and purpose and help them to find their voice.
“The speeches that my learners complete as part of their ESB assessment are very close to the heart and the culture of the community that I serve. They have the most enchanting experience with an ESB assessor and they then feel a sense of achievement when they receive a certificate at the end of it. Do not underestimate the joy of that golden ticket that those children take home, that they can share and display, that their families in overcrowded, intergenerational, non-English speaking homes have enormous pride in.”
Watch the video below demonstrating the positive experience that ESB assessments bring from start to finish at Avril’s school.
Our assessment methodology aims are to build confidence, focus on the interactivity of communication and the personal development it creates. ESB’s assessments give agency to the learners; it is for them to choose their subjects upon which to prepare and be assessed. We externally assess 12-14,000 learners a year, counting amongst our centres award winning special education providers, schools in opportunity areas and the third sector with charities. Our focus is not one of performance but communication – speaking, listening, preparing the learner to take their place in society as a worker and citizen. For social mobility, we as citizens should be equipped to inform, instruct, draw out from others, explain, question, interpret, listen, disagree and advise.
As one of ESB’s centres, Articulacy specialises in offering workshops, particularly as a vehicle for social mobility that build confidence and raise self-esteem through spoken English. By incorporating ESB into their workshops, learners are awarded with an accredited qualification at the end of their training, giving them a sense of achievement and evidence of their progression.
Julia says: “Our students thoroughly enjoy completing ESB assessments and are proud to gain a qualification that provides them with valuable skills that will last them a lifetime! The team behind Articulacy share a similar ethos to ESB and believe that ESB assessments help equip people with great oracy skills allowing them to communicate, both professionally and personally, with confidence.”
Tina adds: “ESB is proud to be part of the Oracy APPG’s inquiry championing the value of good speaking and listening skills and the need for oracy to be reflected in educational policy making and curriculum development. It’s fantastic to see that oracy is starting to be recognised as a priority in education! Emma Hardy has invited me to be part of one of the next APPG panels and so we will have more opportunities to advocate the place of our unique assessments as being a valid pathway of promoting oracy in our schools.”
We hope that you and your learners have settled into the new academic year, and you are keeping safe and well. You are probably thinking about how to manage your assessments over the next months and we at ESB International (Ltd). are working on how we can ensure that assessments can go ahead, if local or national conditions prevent our assessors from coming to your centre.
Our priority is to offer face-to-face assessments, so that your learners can have the experience of demonstrating all the skills they have developed to an ESB International assessor who is in the room with them. We have protocols to keep the learners, teachers and assessors as safe as possible, and will follow all your centre’s procedures as well.
However, we must also prepare for times when the local or national situation prevents assessors from coming to centres.
How your assessments can continue if the local or national situation prevents assessors from coming to centres The great news is most ESB assessments can go ahead with synchronous live assessment using video conferencing tools. Ofqual, our regulator, has released the Extended Extraordinary Regulatory Framework (read more here: EERF), which permits Awarding Organisations to offer adapted assessments when they are required, for example if you cannot have an assessor in your centre, or the assessor cannot travel, and so for most qualifications, we will be offering synchronous (live), online assessment when it is needed, using the video-conferencing software that your learners are used to. We have already offered this adaptation in the summer, and the learners, assessors and teachers found it to be valid, reliable and a very positive experience. For some qualifications, asynchronous, recorded assessment may also be possible if it is required. There are a few qualifications that cannot be adapted using asynchronous digital assessments, which can only be assessed synchronously.
When can I have the list of qualifications that can be adapted and the detail of what will happen with my learners? Detailed information about each qualification, how we are adapting it, and what centres and learners need to do to prepare are in the guidance documents that we will be releasing on Monday 2nd November.
If you have any questions about assessments in the meantime, please email product@esbuk.org. We wish you all a restful and healthy half-term, and are very much looking forward to working with you in 2020 and 2021.
