Assessment without levels qualitative research

Expressions of interest are sought to conduct a series of qualitative interviews with school senior leaders and school classroom teachers to investigate assessment practices following the removal of national curriculum levels. We are proposing a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with senior leaders/head teachers and classroom teachers across both primary and secondary schools.

We envisage interviewing one senior leader or head teacher and two classroom teachers from within a school, conducting the research with approximately 35-40 schools in total, i.e. approximately 100-120 interviews in total. The successful bidder will be expected to work closely with the department to develop questions and topic areas for the interview guides.

Whilst we have set out the broad parameters of the methodology bidders are free to suggest amendments if, based on their proven expertise, they can provide clear rationale as to how this will successfully meet the key aims of the research. It is anticipated that fieldwork will be conducted after the summer school holidays but before the start of the Autumn half term break.