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Louise Badham

Head of Assessment Design & Principles at AQA (UK exam board), formerly Manager for Assessment Research & Design at the International Baccalaureate and a DPhil (Education) student at the University of Oxford.

Oct 1, 2026

22:51
You've said a little bit already about your universal design practice, but would you be able to talk us through a bit more how these principles work and which specific principles are trying to address which specific problems that you see as currently existing with assessment practice?
23:10
Yeah, absolutely.
23:11
So the principles are really sort of this-- We have a, a set of standards, I suppose, that are sort of the o-overarching approach, and then there's a whole load of detail beneath them.
23:20
So I'll just go through the, [chuckles] the overarching standards, kind of the ideals.
23:24
So essentially it comes down to, first of all, asking the question of what i-- what is the thing that we're trying to assess? So being really, like, clearly defining what it is we're interested in assessing in a particular assessment.
23:34
Once you know what that is, it's much easier to identify the barriers that can get in the way of it.
23:39
So [clears throat] then, uh, once we're clear about the purpose of the assessment, then we are interested in sort of a, a little bit about what we've talked about already.

12 MINS LATER

36:16
Are, are there any examples of where a school or a center have said, "Look, we want this," and you did it? And also, are there any examples where the feedback that's been given to you has ever challenged an assumption or, or completely changed the direction of the work that you've been doing?

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