CCEA’s Response to InCAS Issue
Friday 16 October 2009
InCAS Assessments are tests taken by pupils in Years 4-7 at the beginning of the school year which inform teaching and learning throughout the rest of the year.
Following the delivery of these assessments in September, a small number of schools informed CCEA that their scores for General Maths were not as they had expected.
CCEA instructed CEM (Centre for Evaluating and Monitoring) who administer the tests to carry out a check on the results. They reported that the scores were accurate at that time.
On further investigation CEM detected an error in the program which caused some of the General Maths scores to be incorrect. Over 300 schools were affected. The error was caused by the inclusion in 2009 of an additional set of questions for the purpose of future development. This has since been corrected and accurate scores have now been processed. These scores are now available to schools via the InCAS website. CCEA has already contacted all affected schools to inform them of this issue. Letters have also been sent to these schools, with guidance on the next steps to take.
CCEA has discussed guidance for affected schools with the Teaching Unions and DE. The primary aim of this guidance is to minimise disruption and costs for schools. Central to this guidance is advice to schools that none of the InCAS assessments need to be re-taken by children. Schools are also advised that if parent – teacher meetings have already taken place these will not need to be arranged again. Where InCAS General Maths results have required correction, these will be issued by schools to parents by post along with a letter of explanation and apology from CCEA.
This falls far short of CCEA standards and we apologise sincerely for any distress caused to pupils and their parents. A series of rigorous checks has since been carried out across all assessments within InCAS.
We have been given assurances that the error was contained within the General Maths assessment. We have also applied our own quality assurance mechanisms with the help of CCEA research and statistics experts.
A full investigation has been initiated within CEM as to how this occurred and we will ensure that measures are implemented to avoid this happening again.
This year completes the implementation of InCAS in primary schools and CCEA will continue to provide ongoing support to schools and teachers. Feedback on the use of InCAS assessments to date has been very positive and we remain committed to monitoring and developing the assessment tool.
