Proposals for revised curricula in all four regions of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) aspire to help young people to develop the higher-order thinking skills and personal capabilities needed for the knowledge society. The revised curricula in each region also promotes the benefit of inter/cross-disciplinary learning. But few assessment models for this type of teaching and learning exist in the UK. The danger is that curriculum intentions may be distorted unless forms of assessment are developed that better serve curriculum aims. Some interesting innovations in Queensland and New Zealand provide perspectives on the type of assessment frameworks needed. This session will describe how over the past eight months, a team has come together from the four UK countries, to examine the insights from an innovative project undertaken in Queensland Australia, called the New Basics Project. Working with colleagues from Queensland and New Zealand, we set out to develop shared teaching, learning and assessment frameworks (which were then customised to the curriculum requirements in each of our countries), and to evaluate their effects on promoting higher order thinking, independent learning and creativity. Colleagues in Scotland have trialled the approaches with a small number of schools. The session will provide insights into the models developed and will show how working together as a team, across national boundaries, has enriched all our thinking in ways that we hope may have cross-national impact. | 