Too clever for their own good

Arthur Smith's recollections were followed by a rather more pungent dish at the UEA: a lecture on the education of teenagers by Sir Mike Tomlinson. Sir Mike's refrain this week was that one side-effect of the "mechanistic" assessment of A levels was that pupils could be "penalised for being too clever". Could the same be true of Sir Mike's recommendations for reform, which received a less than lukewarm reception from Ruth Kelly earlier this year?