Engaging, relevant experience: students enjoy project-based learning Credit: Philip Hollis Calls for systemic reform to the education system have proliferated since lockdown began, not least since the inherent weaknesses in an exam-only approach have been ruthlessly exposed: grading is inaccurate; a third must fail; disadvantage compounds disadvantage. "Exams are the fairest way" is a mantra increasingly detached from reality. A hundred "One Nation" Tories have called for an end to GCSEs; state and independent school leaders have formed the Rethinking Assessment movement; open letters from heavy hitters have called for a Royal Commission; and most recently Pearson, a major exam board, has announced its own inquiry into the future of qualification and assessment, gathering the great and the good to act as its steering group.