Assessment of Performance Unit

The Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) was set up in 1975 within the Department of Education and Science (DES) to promote the development of methods of assessing and monitoring the achievement of students at school, and to seek to identify the incidence of underachievement. The APU commissioned research teams to create instruments and methods of assessment and to conduct surveys in five curriculum areas: language, science, mathematics, foreign languages and design and technology. Between 1978 and 1988 surveys were carried out in these areas using samples of children aged 11, 13 (science and foreign language only) and 15 (design and technology), in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the decade to 1985 there was a gradual shift from monitoring, towards supporting curriculum development through an increasing focus on understanding what enhanced or blocked learning. It was in this climate that APU design and technology was launched. The case for an APU survey in technology education was first proposed in 1979 and in 1980 the DES created a working group to consider the assessment of design and technological abilities.