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Within the new framework set out in the final report of the Working Group on 14–19 Reform (2004), an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) was proposed in England to foster the development of students' independent study skills. Widespread national provision of a fully accredited EPQ, as a stand‐alone Level 3 qualification, began in September 2008, preceded by a fully evaluated pilot. A survey of students taken during the pilot explored the relationship between students' approaches to learning and their achievement on the EPQ, in addition to assessing the extent to which the new qualification fulfilled its aims. On the basis of questionnaire responses from students, a set of models was fitted to describe the extent to which attainment and engagement with the pilot EPQ were influenced by learning approach. Results showed that, notwithstanding the contribution of previous academic achievement, attainment on the EPQ was positively related to intrinsic motivation; clearly a desirable attribute for lifelong learning but also an indication that the qualification may encourage students to be more innovative and creative about their learning. Furthermore, students' engagement with the project appeared independent of their prior achievement – a feature which has the potential to help lower the barriers to participation.

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This article addresses whether the introduction of end‐of‐course, linear General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations changed the socio‐economic equity gap in England. The GCSE is a national examination offered in a wide range of subjects and taken by almost the entire 16‐year‐old age cohort. Between the years 2007 and 2014, it underwent a number of reforms to both the underlying curriculum and the examination structure. At the beginning of the period, examinations were primarily modular in structure where the course was decomposed into discrete units tested in a staged manner. By 2014, all GCSE examinations were linear and the whole course content was tested simultaneously when study was complete. These structural changes and the curriculum reforms mean that the impact of modular and linear testing on the performance of students has been the focus of recent interest. Some educational commentators suggested that modular examinations are more suitable for lower‐performing students, including those with lower socio‐economic status (SES). This research has been conducted to monitor the socio‐economic equity gap in the light of the structural changes. It focuses on GCSE mathematics and concludes that, although there is still a clear gap in attainment between disadvantaged students and their peers, this gap does not seem to be exacerbated by the examination structure. In other words, the linearisation of GCSE mathematics is unlikely to have increased inequity between students of high and low SES.

Writing is generally assessed internationally using rubric-based approaches, but there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the reliability of such approaches is poor. In contrast, comparative judgement studies suggest that it is possible to assess open ended tasks such as writing with greater reliability. Many previous studies, however, have failed to provide direct comparisons between these approaches as the reliability measures for rubric- and marking-based studies are not comparable with the internal measures of reliability cited by comparative judgement studies. We investigated the classification accuracy and consistency of a rubric-based approach to the grading of writing with a comparative judgement approach. The writing was gathered from 11-year-olds in low stakes settings in England. We present evidence that the comparative judgement approach has twice the classification accuracy as the rubric-based approach and is perfectly viable in terms of its efficiency. We discuss the limitations of the comparisons and consider what a national system for assessing writing based on a comparative judgement approach could look like.