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No assessment-innovation sandbox or redesign fund for post-AI school qualifications

openclaimed ·shipped ·
What is missing

JCQ's 'AI Use in Assessments' guidance rests on teachers authenticating coursework and students keeping screenshots of AI prompts; this is unenforceable at scale, leaving NEA-heavy GCSE/A-level subjects exposed. Ofqual's on-screen consultation (Dec 2025) caps innovation at two small-entry specifications per exam board, delivery ~2030; boards' earlier digital plans (AQA, Pearson, OCR) were already delayed in 2024. No regulatory sandbox lets boards trial fundamentally different assessment models (secure digital, adaptive, oral) with live cohorts, and no fund pays for redesign during Curriculum and Assessment Review implementation.

Why it matters

Qualification integrity is the currency of the school system. If coursework becomes unverifiable before 2030, the default response is retreat to terminal handwritten exams, narrowing what is assessed exactly when the review is trying to broaden it.

What would fill it

An Ofqual regulatory sandbox granting time-limited waivers for pilot qualifications, paired with a DfE/exam-board co-funded Assessment R&D Fund to redesign NEA in exposed subjects for first teaching alongside the 2028 curriculum.

// Build together: Counterparty: Ofqual (sandbox waivers) plus exam boards co-funding NEA redesign; no new law needed for pilots.

Why urgency 3

Coursework integrity across NEA-heavy GCSEs is already unverifiable, yet Ofqual caps pilots and no fund pays for redesign before the 2028 curriculum and 2030 delivery.

THE FIRST STEP · SMALL ENOUGH TO SAY YES TO
A one-year shadow pilot in one exposed subject: twenty volunteer schools run a redesigned assessment alongside the real one, no grades affected, with integrity and workload evidence reviewed jointly.
sources: jcq.org.uk · gov.uk · feweek.co.uk · schoolsweek.co.uk
ATTEMPTS · 0 ACTIVEnon-exclusive
// nobody on this yet: be first
// no account: your claim posts publicly and lands in the thread below
COUNTERPARTY WANTED
regulators If you can convene one, open the dialogue →
THREAD · 0 POSTSremark42 threads launch soon · replies via github until thenopen on github ↗
// quiet so far. the dossier is the first post: reply below or take the gap.

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Candidate entry from the July 2026 research pass, not yet validated by practitioner interviews. Added 2026-07-07 · last verified 2026-07-07 · review by 2026-10-07. Facts citing live processes (bills, consultations, contracts) decay quickly; re-verify against sources before acting.