Assessment

How completion is judged

The academy judges a project by the evidence it shows once it is finished, not by whether the learner followed one set process. Creative and technical work rarely runs in one neat order. A learner may start with a problem, a material, a sound, a reference or an unexpected discovery.

From the Maker stage onward, assessed work must show six things, called evidence states: Aim, Options, Made, Evaluated, Shared and Refined. Together they make up the Definition of Done, the academy’s standard for when a piece of work is complete.

The six can come in any order. A facilitator may teach a way of working, but nobody is assessed on having followed it.

Each evidence state is something the work has to show, not a form to hand in. How it is shown can be adapted to the learner, the subject and the project, as long as the evidence is there.

Evidence states: where each piece of work stands

What each state looks like depends on the subject. Made may be a robot, a digital service, a song, an artwork or a community activity the learner facilitated. Evaluated means a technical test in one project and a critique or a rehearsal in another. The state stays the same; the evidence for it is whatever is normal in that subject.

Explorer work is not assessed. It is open, hands-on exploration where learners set their own goals[5]. The Definition of Done applies exactly where certification applies, and nowhere else.

The same standard in every subject

Every course publishes what the standard means in its own subject, so the meaning is agreed in advance rather than made up on the day. A facilitator may still explain it in a learner’s own language, or in another form that works for them. What the evidence has to show stays the same.

In arts subjects the artist’s statement is the natural record for Shared. Portfolios that record the work are a long-used way of showing how something was made and what was learned. Around three-quarters of surveyed makerspaces already assess in some form, so this is established practice rather than an experiment[21].

What a certificate is based on

A certificate rests on three things: the work itself, the talk-through (the learner explaining their work to a facilitator) and the reflection (the learner looking back on what they learned).

Research on learning from experience treats reflection as the step that helps a learner carry what they learned from one experience into the next situation[7]. The reflection also lets an assessor see that link. Without it, the evidence shows only that this particular thing was built once.

The talk-through does a lot of the work and costs the least. It needs only a facilitator’s time, and it works across subjects better than most other checks. That matters because digital work is far easier to assess automatically than craft work is.

It is also the cheapest way to tell real understanding from a polished piece of work made with a lot of help. That matters more now that AI tools can generate work. Another accessible format can replace the spoken conversation, as long as it answers the same questions.

How assessment stays fair

• Learners can see the criteria before work begins, written in words they can use.
• Like is compared with like. A learner’s work is judged against the marking guide (rubric) for the course level they enrolled in, never against the strongest person in the room.
• Records of the work let progress be reviewed, so a judgement can be checked again later rather than relying on memory.
• Assessment is kept apart from encouragement. Both matter. Mixing them up makes the assessment meaningless and the encouragement hard to trust.
• Earlier learning counts if there is evidence for it, wherever it was learned. It is judged against the same entry requirements or outcomes as learning done in a course. The placement check does this when a learner starts; completion is judged against the course’s own standard.

Attendance creates an opportunity to learn. Demonstrated, explained work shows what was learned. Only the second belongs on a certificate.

How quality is judged

The Definition of Done shows that work is complete. Whether it is good is a separate question, and the ways of judging that are rougher than a percentage mark would suggest.

Two published frameworks shape how the marking guides for each level describe better work, without pretending to more precision than exists:

• One sorts work by how it handles ideas: one idea, several unconnected ideas, several connected ideas, and finally a general principle that reaches beyond the task[20].
• The other describes how skill grows: from following rules, through judging each situation, to working fluently[18].

A revised classification of learning goals treats creating as one of the most demanding kinds of learning, not a decoration[19]. So a course in the STEAM programmes can include it in its advanced outcomes, rather than leaving it until everything else is done.

What is not settled yet

Two other questions are still open:

• The exact criteria for finishing each level of each subject are still being written, alongside the courses themselves.
• It has not been decided whether certificates should be accredited by an outside body or stay issued by the academy alone.