ABSTRACT
This paper draws upon two overlapping pieces of research carried out in England and Wales between 1973 and 1982. One concerned the relationships between teachers and examining boards and the other explored those between the examining boards and the wider society (see Whitty, 1976 and 1978). Although the initial focus of the research was on the extent of teacher autonomy within the existing GCE and CSE examination systems, the developing controversy over the proposed common system of examining at 16+ became increasingly significant to it. 1 Therefore, it became increasingly concerned with interrelationships between the existing system of examining and the proposals for a new system intended to replace it. It seemed that developments within the existing system were affecting proposals for the new one and vice versa. In particular, the experiences of the various boards within the existing system appeared to influence the stances they took up in relation to the proposed changes, while their jockeying for position within the new system seemed in turn to affect the ways in which the boards operated the existing one. The most noticeable trend within both contexts during the period of our research, and the one upon which teachers remarked most often, was a reversion by the boards towards traditional approaches to examining and a consequent questioning of the ideology of direct teacher involvement in public examinations which had received some currency during the 1960s and early 1970s. There was thus something of a retreat from the concept of teacher control of assessment and the belief that examinations should reflect the needs of the curriculum, the very ideals that had informed the Beloe Report (SSEC, 1960) and led to the establishment of the CSE boards. Although these ideals were never fully translated into practice even by most of the CSE boards, there is little doubt that what developments there had been in this direction have suffered some serious reversals in recent years.
