Interview with Justin Coombs, Executive Director of Assessment Technology at Exam Board, AQA

“Looking back now, I’m really grateful that my learning and exams gave me structure, motivation and skills for my working life.”
 
Justin Coombs joined national awarding Exam Board, AQA nearly ten years ago and is presently Executive Director of Assessment Technology, with responsibility for the design and development of the software systems used to deliver assessment, including administration of candidate entries and results, and scanning and marking of scripts.
 
Prior to joining AQA, Justin worked in software development roles in financial services, data science and medical technology.  In his role as Director of Systems Implementation at dunnhumby, Justin led the international rollout of their core data science platform through a significant phase of expansion.

Whilst Justin cannot now recall in any great detail his experience of exams as a learner – apart from an uncomfortable French A Level exam when he was poorly with a terrible bug - he certainly excelled in his exams; and embraced the content and skills learned from his subjects.
 
At A Level, Justin studied Maths, Further Maths, French and German and then went on to study Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
 
We are pleased to find out more now about his role and insights of working for AQA.

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1. What do you find to be most personally rewarding working for AQA?
For me, the most rewarding part of working for AQA is when we get to the annual A Level and GCSE results’ days.
 
As exams run through the Summer, we see huge volumes of exam papers arriving at our scanning centre in Milton Keynes, which provides an insight into the scale of the job that we do for the nation. So, it is great when we get to results day to take a moment appreciating the media coverage showing millions of learners across the country getting the grades they have worked for.
 
We can also enjoy listening to stories about them progressing onto university and college and, whatever comes next and reflect and be thankful for the fact that we have been able to help to move them forward.
 
2. What was your own experience of learning for GCSEs and A Levels?
I was fortunate in that I engaged with most of the subjects at GCSE and A Level; and much of this learning has been invaluable in my subsequent career. There is hardly a subject area that I have not applied – from the core skills of Maths and Computer Science typically associated with IT careers to the Geography, Modern Languages and Science, which have all helped me along my career journey.

3. What do you consider to be the most significant change in the exams system in recent years?
This is an interesting question, because aside from the COVID pandemic, where we obviously had to operate in a completely different system; the exams system has largely been stable since the last round of reform in 2017/2018.
 
However, at AQA, we have been working to refresh all our systems in order to make the lives of teachers and Exams Officers easier with the introduction of new technology and features, such as the digital media portal, which released new features for uploading audio and video over the last two summers.

4. What do you believe distinguishes AQA from other awarding bodies?
Fundamentally, the fact that AQA is a not-for-profit charity, rather than a commercial organisation.
 
Hence, at our core is our charitable purpose of delivering fair and accurate results and never to let a learner down. This means that we wish to ensure accurate and fair results for learners on results day that reflects their performance. It means that we offer some qualifications that other Exam Boards would not be able to offer, because we are driven by doing the right thing for education, rather than doing the right thing for shareholders.

5. How would you like to see exams evolve over the next ten years and how realistic is this thinking?
We anticipate that exams will evolve gradually over the coming years.
 
We are planning for an incremental shift towards digital assessment, as we recognise that digital skills are critical for today's young people who will be entering the workplace in the 2030 and 2040s. We know that many of today's students are used to doing a lot of their work on digital devices, but we still recognise the ‘digital divide’ in access to technology, so want to make sure every step we take drives greater equality.
 
But these evolutionary changes can only be within the boundaries of what schools can support. Furthermore, we completely recognise the challenges of teacher workload – so, we want to make sure that whenever we’re ready to introduce technology it has a positive impact for teachers and school leaders too.
 
We thank Justin for his dedication to all those learners who will be sitting and who have sat AQA exams in their educational career.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT AQA HERE