1. Mick reiterated Ken Boston's words from two years ago - the CIEA must stay out of the political arena and stick to what it does best - assessment.
2. The Challenge for the CIEA is to ensure that the purposes of assessments are clear. In the past, government has used external assessments for purposes other than those for which they were devised.
3. To help the CIEA do this it has to develop a community of practice. Learners and students now see themselves as customers. As such they want what all of us want - value for money. The CIEA must communicate effectively with its members to spell out these realities. We need to communicate with each other and with the wider community in clear language, expressing what it is we stand for and supporting the interests of those we assess.
4. It is the learner who makes sense of the system in which he or she is working. The CIEA must communicate what a learner has achieved in terms of attainment, what progress the learner has made and the way to improve that attainment effectively. In order to do this the CIEA must use assessment as the tool for which it is used: as a tool to inform others. The challenge for the CIEA is to develop a professional community of practice where communications regarding best practice flow readily from one member to another. We need to harness our knowledge and share it.