Purposeful and developmental

Assessments are purposeful and developmental, they promote and facilitate students’ learning, engagement and understanding, ensuring that students are able to benchmark their current level of knowledge and skills.

This principle might be applied by:

• Offering a range of both formative and summative assessments.
• Developing students’ assessment literacy to enable them to increasingly regulate their own learning and performance.
• Fostering active and independent learning.

Valid

Assessments are aligned to learning outcomes for the module/programme and allow students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and level of achievement against these learning outcomes by the end of the module/programme.

This principle might be applied by:

• Ensuring that assessment forms an integral part of module and programme design.
• Ensuring that assessment practices are developed and monitored at the programme level.
• Ensuring that assessment design aligns with the disciplinary / professional context.
• Ensuring that assessment supports students’ progression through the programme and allows them to demonstrate their achievement against the learning outcomes for the programme appropriate to the level of the award.
• Ensuring that assessment provides evidence of students’ achievement through the programme to enable decisions to be made about their progress against the award of their academic qualification.

Clear, reliable, and consistent

Assessments and associated criteria are designed so that they can be clearly understood and so that student work can be reliably and consistently assessed.

This principle might be applied by:

• Ensuring assessment criteria, weightings and level descriptors are clearly articulated for all assessment activities so that they are accessible to and understood by all students and staff involved in the assessment process.
• Devising assessment criteria that are sufficiently robust to ensure reasonable parity between the judgements of different assessors.
• Ensuring students receive clear and timely information about the assessment tasks, standards expected, marking schemes and marking criteria for their modules.
• Ensuring marking and moderation policies and practices are clearly articulated, transparent and fair, with clear and consistent policies and processes for marking and moderation.
• Providing students with the opportunity to develop an understanding of academic integrity and good academic practice by ensuring policies and procedures relevant to academic integrity are clear, accessible and actively promoted.

Inclusive

Inclusive assessment practices benefit all students by taking into account the diversity of students’ experiences, circumstances, strengths, skills and knowledge, aiming to ensure that the ways in which we assess do not exclude or unfairly disadvantage some students.

This principle might be applied by:

• Providing every student with an equal opportunity to demonstrate their achievement, considering the needs of all students.
• Utilising inclusive design approaches so as to reduce the need for modified assessment provision (reasonable adjustments and alternative assessments).
• Ensuring that assessments are accessible to all students.
• Providing opportunities for optionality / flexibility to allow adjustments to overcome any substantial disadvantage that individual students could experience.
• Providing authentic tasks which draw on students’ diverse experience and offer the opportunity to apply knowledge and skills to real-world challenges and situations.

Equitable

Equitable approaches to assessment fairly evaluate students’ performance and provide every student with an equal opportunity to demonstrate their achievement.

This principle might be applied by:

• Ensuring consistency and comparability between assessment types that can facilitate optionality.
• Ensuring equal rigour across disciplines and subject areas.

Compassionate

A compassionate approach to assessment involves designing assessment tasks that are sensitive to lived experiences and positionality^[1], and are mindful of well-being considerations.

This principle might be applied by:

• Giving consideration to the volume and timing of assessments / workload.
• Ensuring that students are supported and prepared for assessment tasks.

Meaningful

Feedback relates to the stated learning outcomes and assessment criteria. It should be used as an opportunity to promote further learning and facilitate the ongoing development and improvement of the students’ work.

This principle might be applied by:

• Clarifying expected standards and addressing the learning outcomes / assessment criteria.
• Indicating what the student needs to focus on in order to improve in their learning and / or any actions they need to take.
• Providing opportunities to develop students’ feedback literacy so that they are able to develop an understanding of feedback practices and how to use feedback effectively.

Dialogic

Dialogic feedback involves conversation and discussion with students during their programme of study about the feedback they have received and how they might use it in order to actively engage in their learning.

This principle might be applied by:

• Developing opportunities for reflective conversations with students about the feedback they have received. This can include conversations with both tutors and peers.
• Creating opportunities for students to ask questions, discuss any points of disagreement or confusion and gain clarity about how to act on the feedback.

Timely

Timely feedback occurs when it is likely to have the most impact on students’ learning and performance in subsequent assessment tasks. Expectations in relation to feedback turnaround time should be consistent and clearly articulated.

This principle might be applied in the following ways:

• Providing feedback in time to allow students the opportunity to reflect upon and use it to improve their performance in future assessments.
• Providing timely opportunities for students to work with and reflect on their feedback in the context of future assessments

Clear and consistent

Clear and consistent feedback enables students to understand and interpret the feedback they have been given.

This principle might be applied in the following ways:

• Aligning feedback to the mark received and the learning outcomes.
• Giving students information they need to understand the mark they have been given.
• Giving feedback which is communicated in a way that is understandable and accessible to the students receiving it.
• Providing opportunities for students to ask questions to clarify their understanding about the feedback they have received.

Constructive and supportive

Constructive and supportive feedback enables and motivates students to understand and focus on what they need to do to improve and develop their learning.

This principle might be applied in the following ways:

• Providing balance between what has been done well and what needs to be developed / improved.
• Giving clear signposts about how to develop and improve work and the steps that need to be taken.
• Giving recommendations that are achievable and proportionate.
• Considering the quantity of feedback given.
• Focusing on developing confidence and motivation in students.
• Taking an inclusive approach that accounts for the diversity of students’ experiences, circumstances, strengths, skills and knowledge.

Responsible Service:

Academic Quality and Development Team

Responsible Manager:

Policy Manager Academic Quality and Development

External regulatory and/or legal

requirement addressed:

Office for Students (2022) Securing student success: Regulatory framework for higher education in England.

Equality Impact Assessment:

N/A

Approval date:

04/08/2025

Effective from:

01/09/2025

Date of next review:

31/07/2026