The introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in 1986 marked a significant shift in music education practice across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Unlike previous qualifications, the GCSE emphasised a central triumvirate of accessible, practical skills – performing, composing, and appraising – which, forty years later, remain foundational in secondary music education across the three nations. In this article, we therefore analyse how the tripartite performing–composing–appraising structure has shaped the development of the GCSE between 1986 and 2026. Using historical and documentary evidence, we identify four trends of political quiescence, progressive divergence, neoliberal convergence, and neoconservative coalescence, and suggest that across all three nations a subtle shift towards a fourfold performing–composing–knowing–appraising framework is beginning to erode the GCSE as an accessible, practical approach to assessment.

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is essential for mitigating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in animal health, but implementing national initiatives is challenging due to diverse influencing factors and the need for context-specific approaches. An Animal AMS Practice Group, comprising individuals with lived experience overseeing AMS in various animal health contexts, was engaged and through an experience-based co-design approach created a comprehensive AMS Framework that captures progress and supports tangible improvements in AMS practices in each context. The Framework supported a cross-sectoral pilot assessment that helped users identify progress, areas for improvement and contextualise antimicrobial usage and AMR data, while also motivating further AMS efforts. Despite common barriers to the sharing of sensitive data, participants willingly shared AMS results for comparison and publication. The process demonstrated that co-design coupled with peer learning and expert support is essential to creating AMS tools that are relatable to users. Several participants incorporated the Framework into routine practice, with some using it to drive sector-level AMS action. The resulting Framework offers an adaptable, scalable entry point for AMS efforts and a platform for setting meaningful improvement goals. It supports broader opportunities for national-level AMS assessments and strategy development.

Although there are public expectations regarding improvements to farm animal welfare, farmers’ well-being remains largely overlooked. This is particularly concerning given the high prevalence of physical and mental health issues among farming populations. As key stakeholders in the implementation of animal welfare practices, farmers play an essential role in welfare outcomes. Improving animal welfare may require addressing farmers’ own well-being. To support this hypothesis, it is necessary to examine the relationship between farmers’ well-being and the welfare of their animals. This scoping review aimed to: (1) map the methods used to describe relationships between farmer well-being and animal welfare in primary research; and (2) compile pieces of evidence of such relationships. Following the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews, the same search was carried out on three databases (Web of Science Core Collection, MEDLINE, CABI digital library). Twenty-two articles from the 10,189 retrieved met the inclusion criteria. Results underscored the need to standardise methods to enable cross-study comparisons, as different questionnaires were used to assess the same construct (e.g. four for psychological stress), and none of the animal welfare indicators were fully comparable. Moreover, 94 pieces of evidence regarding the relationships between farmer well-being and the welfare of their animals were compiled. Ninety-three pieces described positive associations where improved farmer well-being was associated with improved welfare of their animals, and vice versa. This result suggests that welfare improvement strategies on farms should address not only animal welfare, but also farmer well-being. The results therefore support a One Welfare approach on commercial farms.

Documentary linguistics is new and distinctive enough that some linguists and other participants in academic reviews may be uncertain about how to assess its outputs. We recommend specific strategies for assessing documentary linguistic scholarship in academic review contexts, based on a brief description of the field for the benefit of colleagues in other areas.

This paper advocates a holistic approach to assessing international relations in undergraduate education, which revolves around: (a) essays and (b) active learning-related tasks, such as simulation reflective statements/reports and performance. The paper argues that, on the one hand, academic essays are far from irrelevant and it is difficult to overestimate their practical significance. On the other hand, active learning-related tasks are best utilised as a supplementary assessment, expanding the students’ range of transferable skills. The assessment structure advocated in this paper results from a holistic approach to assessment design, which includes teacher’s own experience, familiarity with pedagogical scholarship and input from students. This last element is the least common even though it makes sense to understand how students see their own assessment. To that end, the paper shares the results of a pilot project run at one of the UK universities, which engaged students as partners in rethinking their assessment.

During the last two decades, there have been various attempts at measuring and assessing the health of civil society. Some have focused almost exclusively on ‘counting’ the nonprofit, while others have assessed the strength of nongovernmental organizations. Yet, these sectors are just a small part of a much larger environment. Moreover, they are the result of Western conceptualizations of civil society, thus not very helpful for one to understand civic participation in non-Western settings. Taking stock of these fundamental issues, this article presents the conceptual framework and methodology of a new global index to measure the ‘enabling environment’ of civil society, rather than its forms and institutional contours. Given the inherent diversity of civil societies worldwide, which defies any attempt at developing predetermined definitions, understanding the conditions that support civic participation becomes the most important objective for those interested in promoting a strong civil society arena. The index was launched by CIVICUS in late 2013 with the name of enabling environment index and covers over 200 countries and territories, making it the most ambitious attempt ever made at measuring civil society worldwide.

There is now a rich pedagogical literature that attests to the absolute centrality of assessment and feedback in effective student learning at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. And yet – despite this consensus in the pedagogical literature over the crucial importance of assessment and feedback – they are not, it seems, fulfilling their purpose or potential for students or lecturers alike. This symposium starts from the premise that assessment and feedback matter, that they are not working at present and that we need to find ways to do them differently. The symposium brings together five original articles from contributors who all want to explore alternative ways of thinking about, and doing, assessment and/or feedback so that they work better both for our students and for us as their lecturers.

This article contends that the creation of a legacy by students enables them to situate their time and experiences at university within their broader life goals and expectations. Legacy learning refers to the act of creating an archive or artefact for the benefit of posterity; collating, collecting and creating a virtual or tangible article, or objet, for successive cohorts to utilise as a learning resource. It is also a tangible product that students may use to demonstrate their skills to prospective employers; something to take away with them from the process of learning. At the heart of the concept are two key factors: collaboration and the process of self-reflection. This article illustrates legacy learning through the examination of a final year module on Asia for which small groups of students had to produce a documentary video and individual self-reflection paper. Although the putative goal of the endeavour was envisioned as the realisation of the documentary itself, the self-reflection exercise by students suggests that the underlying learning value of the exercise may in fact rest in the self-realisation of the learner.

In this symposium, we invite political science instructors to consider reflection as a useful pedagogic resource for achieving complex long-term educational goals. The authors of this collection have found reflection to be a suitable response to different teaching challenges, such as helping students achieve a nuanced understanding of social processes and decision-making, transfer knowledge between courses and gain self-awareness as active participants in learning. The three papers composing this symposium focus on different formats of reflection: a learning diary; reflection accompanying board games used as a teaching exercise; and short reflective assignments about connections between courses in a study programme. We present and discuss the design and implementation of reflective activities in the undergraduate political science curriculum, expose the strengths and weaknesses of using reflection and provide advice to instructors interested in using this teaching tool.

Dissatisfied with traditional grading, we developed a grading system to directly assess whether students have mastered course material. We identified the set of skills students need to master in a course and provided multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery of each skill. We describe in detail how we implemented the system for two undergraduate courses, Introductory Phonetics and Phonology I. Our goals were to decrease student stress, increase student learning and make students' study efforts more effective, increase students' metacognitive awareness, promote a growth mindset, encourage students to aim for mastery rather than partial credit, be fairer to students facing structural and institutional disadvantages, reduce our time spent on grading, and facilitate complying with new accreditation requirements. Our own reflections and student feedback indicate that many of these goals were met.

Increasingly, simulation-based teaching and learning is finding a place within politics and international relations (IR) programmes. The majority of literature on this style of teaching and learning has positioned it as both an aid to content delivery and as a response to the many challenges facing contemporary higher education. Little guidance is given, however, to the practical considerations of using simulations as a component of assessment or as informing assessed tasks. This article draws upon the experience of the authors in adapting the well-established Model United Nations (MUN) simulation programme for delivery as an assessed module at a British university. This has involved balancing institutional teaching, assessment and validation requirements with the successful simulation of diplomatic practice. The article introduces the MUN simulation and explores the extant pedagogic literature encouraging the use of simulation-based learning in IR curricula, before moving on to provide an overview of the rationale for the various decisions the authors have made in adapting the simulation for delivery as an assessed curriculum component. The article asserts the value of introducing assessed simulations within IR coursework and provides guidance on how student performance in pedagogic simulations might best be assessed.

This article reviews the work of the American Political Science Association in support of teaching and learning within the discipline. It draws from a variety of sources in which this agenda is elaborated, with three goals in mind: to characterise the wide variety of activities the Association has in place, to touch on the history of those efforts, and to put these activities into the broader context of the role of a learned society.