‘What do you mean I failed?’ Using in year retrieval as a learning tool

When students receive a fail mark on an assessment in UK higher education (usually a mark under 40%), the most common experience is that they wait many months for a point of re-assessment after their marks have been confirmed by an examination/progression/award board. The outcome of the board will confirm whether they are to resit the piece of work, repeat the level, or be failed out of the programme of study. This process is a relatively blunt tool and offers little by way of compassion or of learning opportunity. Neither does it reflect the likely approach of employers to poor performance where improvement would be expected within a short timeframe. For the majority of students who receive a resit opportunity, often several months have passed since their original attempt. From both a pedagogical perspective and a graduate outcomes perspective, change is needed to bring about a more compassionate, purposeful, and meaningful approach to failed assessment in HE. This piece calls for a change in resit practices and outlines the steps taken to introduce ‘in year retrieval’ (IYR) within one university. Data from the pilot phases of the work, the principles established, and the positive impact upon student retention and progression show that enabling students to retrieve failed assessment at a point in time close to the failure yields positive outcomes for learners. The author does not suggest that IYR is the answer to all assessment ills but does argue that it is time that the sector consider anew the often-significant delay learners face prior to assessment retrieval.