Exam questions could be submitted by teachers

Exam Board Cambridge Assessment is considering ‘crowd sourcing’ GCSE and A level questions from teachers, TES reports

The idea being considered by Cambridge Assessment, which owns the OCR board, would involve getting teachers to submit questions that have worked well in class at challenging pupils. The best of these could then be used for GCSE and A-level exam papers.

Questions would have to go through quality assurance processes before being used for a real exam and the plan would need to be approved by the exams regulator Ofqual in order to go ahead.

Tim Oates, research director at Cambridge Assessment, told TES: “Really interesting questions which – put to children – encourage them to think hard, to integrate things, to understand things and challenge their ideas a bit, are really important.

“We don’t think we should necessarily just commission those through asking a limited number of people.

“We want to know what questions teachers ask in the classroom and whether they were good for unlocking that bit of thinking or revealed that misconception.”

He said the plans could result in teachers' questions appearing on actual GCSE and A-level exam papers within the next three to five years.