Job Description

At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen.

Senior Manager of Assessment

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Full Job Description

Purpose:
The Senior Manager of Assessment leads and performance manages a team of Assessment Managers, Assessment Support Managers and/or Assessment Coordinators and is part of the Assessment Management Leadership Team. They are accountable for ensuring all activities relating to the assessment cycle for each subject are planned, monitored, measured, and managed effectively to deliver to customers and achieve Assessment’s objectives, and quality assure the work of their team to ensure error-free assessment materials. This role is accountable for the implementation of assessment quality activities within the subject group.

They work closely with colleagues across Assessment Management ensuring consistency and process adherence across all subject groups. They maintain strong links to other teams in Assessment, Associate Services, Operations, Standards and Awarding, Incident Management and Customer & Product teams. They will use their assessment, product and process knowledge to feed into wider business work to ensure AQA’s assessments are fit-for-purpose and appeal to customers. The role is a point of escalation for any issues that might impact the quality of an assessment or our ability to deliver accurate results to students and will represent the Assessment Leadership Team in projects and strategic initiatives around the business to champion assessment quality and best practice.Landscape:
Each year over 2000 question papers, assessment artefacts, mark schemes and modified large print papers are created, quality assured and sent to press for domestic and international qualifications by teams across Assessment. These materials are sat by 100,000s of students across three examination series and are pivotal part of their next step in education.

The Assessment Management team sits within Assessment and is accountable for the end-to-end quality of all assessment materials from initial planning and creation to marking and awarding of results. Working with senior associates, they ensure they are error-free, valid, reliable and comply to strict regulatory conditions and implement improvements from robust analytical reviews. The team provide subject-assessment expertise on GQ qualifications to AQA to support work on redevelopment and reform as well as any external regulatory work. They work closely with internal teams across Assessment and COO as well as the wider business to champion assessment quality and best practice.

Assessment Management is split into 7 subject groups; English, Maths, Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts and Technology and Languages. The Senior Manager of Assessment role sits within one of these subject areas and reports to the Head of Assessment Management, working closely with other Senior Managers and Subject Assessment Leads.

Activities:
Lead and manage the allocation of work across the subject group and the processes that are followed, looking to continuously improve them.
Provides regular progress reports and ensures action plans are in place to manage delivery and resource effectively.
Responsible for risk and issue management for the creation of assessment materials.
Recruit and performance manage a team to ensure strong personal performance with high quality outcomes, good cultural fit and personal development.
Provide coaching and support to Assessment Support Managers.
Quality check the work of Assessment Managers, Assessment Support Manager and Assessment Coordinators (where applicable) to ensure high quality is delivered and feedback provided.
Work with the Customer & Product teams to understand what customer expectations are, and with the Assessment Manager/Assessment Support Manager to create assessments that meet these expectations whilst still complying with all regulatory conditions.
Contribute to leadership across the Assessment area and work closely with the Head of Assessment Management to determine and monitor activity, budget and resources needed, including for strategic activity.
Act as a point of internal escalation for issues related to assessments, using knowledge and expertise to provide the right outcomes.
Act a point of escalation for issues related to associate performance and delivery.
Build and foster strong working relationships with colleagues and key business stakeholders and work closely with senior managers in other teams to ensure there is clarity on the service provided and deal with any issues which may arise during delivery.
Coordinate and manage the work of the team related to series delivery and series incident management processes.
Ensure consistency of work and process adherence within and across the subject groups, and own and manage the respective risks and issues that occur.
Represents Assessment Management team on governance groups and manage the relationships with other stakeholders in monitoring, reporting and ensuring delivery to time and quality.
Represent Assessment in series incident management, including sponsorship of series incidents, particularly involving live exam papers, to ensure AQA adopts a consistent and proportionate response that is fair to students. Ensure that the analysis of question paper errors, errata and reprints takes place, and lessons are learned and appropriate actions are taken.
Understand and champion good assessment practice across the organisation, with a particular focus on promoting validity in assessments.
Lead, or input into, Assessment or wider business projects and governance groups.
Lead, or input into, AQA’s response to regulatory matters, reports or correspondence.

To be successful in this role, you will need to:
Have excellent people leadership skills, effective performance management, talent spotting, creating development opportunities and team engagement.
Role model organisational leadership habits and values and behaviours. Be able to have robust conversations, own and deliver corporate messages.
Have a good understanding of the educational landscape, particularly within your subject portfolio and of the regulatory environment in which AQA operates and likely impact of the regulator on assessment creation and delivery management.
Have an understanding of good assessment practice and ability to explain this to others.
Have an understanding of assessment products, processes and practices relevant to your portfolio and limitations and advantages of different systems of assessment delivery.
Have good understanding of data analysis, including statistical data and the ability to interpret data to inform decision making, and monitor performance and impact.
Have experience of effective risk and issue management.
Have an understanding of continuous improvement and quality management principles and practice.
Good interpersonal skills in a variety of situations and communications skills to create and explain a succinct and coherent view of complex issues.
Demonstrate resilience and calmness under pressure to meet tight deadlines in complex contexts.
Be confident in working with, influencing and managing internal and external stakeholders, to ensure the creation and management of valid and reliable assessments that meet customer needs, including appropriate prioritisation and resource management to achieve that.
A “results-focused” mindset and the ability to make pragmatic decisions and deliver at pace.
A “step-up “mindset to use sound judgement when analysing data and taking accountability for actions.
“Work and learn together” by producing high levels of performance from direct reports and teams by modelling leadership behaviours with confidence and providing clarity, challenge, feedback, coaching and development in line with business objectives.