This presentation explores and critically reflects on assessment practices within our GSA curricula, aiming to challenge established notions and prompt re-evaluation of its role. At the core of GSA's educational strategy lies the empowerment of student agency. Through this presentation, we aim to explore how assessment might align with and enhance this overarching ambition. This presentation seeks to ask how, and whether, we might embrace assessment regimes that move away from a perception that assessment is something ‘done to’ students by staff, towards a moment of reflection, feedback and feed-forward that students and staff are equally engaged in and over which students have agency and control.

Roddy Hunter and Martin Newth have both led on instigating pass/fail regimes at other institutions.

We will share insights and critically assess their efficacy, particularly in terms of:
• fostering community,
• encouraging collaborative practices,
• nurturing experimentation and creative risk taking,
• stimulating discourse on curriculum alignment
• and enhancing student well-being by reducing grading-induced stress.
Additionally, we examine dialogic assessment practices, wherein staff and students equally contribute through reflective feedback. We showcase instances of its implementation at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels to explore possibilities for its integration into GSA curricula.

Utilising research in art and design assessment, alongside interdisciplinary literature, we analyse how these alternative assessment approaches align with the imperative for decolonisation and decentring in education. By disrupting conventional dynamics and fostering collaboration, these approaches hold promise for co-creating knowledge.