SOME readers (TES, Letters, July 27) have wrongly assumed, from press coverage, that the Exeter study of threshold assessment was critical of assessors. In fact our analysis of 1,000 primary and secondary headteacher responses showed that 97 per cent rated their assessor as “very” or “quite” effective.Out of more than 19,000 teachers studied there were just 71 disagreements between headteachers and external assessors, 69 of which were resolved amicably, two of which were acrimonious.
We simply asked the question, therefore, if it was necessary to monitor every teacher, in view of this extremely high agreement, rather than spot-check a random sample, or have an appeals system. We did not say external assessment was unnecessary.
Ted Wragg
Professor of education
University of Exeter
