GL Assessment - Kent test

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Dear Kent County Council,

GL Assessment is the test provider for the Kent Test.

1) Why does the copyright for the Kent Test not belong to Kent County Council?

2) Why was a system of choosing questions for the test from a bank of materials chosen?

3) When choosing GL Assessment as a testing provider was the decision to allow GL Assessment to retain copyright intended to reduce the amount of preparation questions available to students.

The following questions are related to the Kent Test familiarisation booklet booklet was produced by GL Assessment for Kent County Council and can be found at this link https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pd...

4) Why did GL Assessment retain copyright to this booklet made for Kent County Council. Was allowing GL Assessment to retain copyright reasonable, since Kent County Council paid GL Assessment to have this booklet produced.

An excerpt from the copyright notice on the booklet reads
"This publication may not be sold or distributed as part of any product
or service, including via private tuition"

5) Why does Kent County Council provide a resource on their website which specifically excludes usage for tuition. Many students would find going over this booklet with a tutor very helpful to gain a deeper understanding of the Kent Test.

6) Why was a less restrictive licence e.g. OGL (Open Government Licence) not considered

Yours faithfully,

Zeljko Torbica

Zeljko Torbica left an annotation ()

Primary school key stage 1 and 2 assessments are created by the standards and testing agency. These exams created by a goverment agency are made available under an Open Government Licence after an examination series has concluded.
Unfortunately, when companies are contracted to create tests for the Kent Test copyright remains with the company meaning student's are harmed due to a lack of preparation materials. Tutor's are even barred from even using the familiarisation booklet with their student's.
Companies that create these tests specifically restrict the amount of 'free' publicly available questions that are released to ensure that coachability for the test is minimised. There is no process for publishing past examination questions in books for example with GL Assessment, something which is offered by other examinations like AQA. This leads to a reliance on third party questions created in the style of GL Assessment.

 

Information request
Our reference: 21498053

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Information request
Our reference: 21498053

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Dear Mr Torbica
 
Thank you for your request for information received on 29 April 2021.
 
Please find attached our response to your request.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 Mollie Redford 
 Information Access Officer 
 
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