Day 1 – Thursday 8 October
8:30am
Networking refreshments
Enjoy refreshments and catch up with other delegates.
9am
Registration open
9.30am
Introduction
Adam Foley – Head of Digital Innovation, Surpass Assessment
9.40am
AI and digitisation: The great skills reset – Navigating change and opportunities for the future of workplace skills and assessment.
Clare Morley – Vocational qualifications Consultant
This keynote explores how AI and digitisation are reshaping workplace skills, assessment, and learner expectations. Reflecting on the early days of computer-based assessment through to today’s AI-driven landscape, Clare highlights how approaches to assessment have evolved, including mixed models, stakeholder challenges, and unexpected opportunities.
The session looks at current thinking around skills needs, regulation, and policy, including Ofqual’s position on AI, before focusing on how qualifications can better reflect the needs of a changing workforce. Key themes include shifting learner expectations, evolving employer demands, and the growing importance of human skills such as judgement, ethics, and communication.
Bringing together past lessons and future possibilities, this session explores how we can balance risk and opportunity, adapt to ongoing change, and design assessment fit for the modern world.
10.40am
Networking break and coffee
10.55am
Surpass company update
Andy McAnulla – Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Sonya Whitworth – Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Join us for a rapid tour of major achievements across Test Centre expansion in the US, security upgrades (WAF), ISO 42001 accreditation, rollout of Copilot v2.1 features, newly developed MCP Server capability and customer impact stories from sectors including Healthcare and General Qualifications.
This session sets the stage by showing how Surpass is evolving into a connected learning and assessment ecosystem – spanning AI-powered item development, automated marking, personalised learning support, large-scale test delivery, and trusted governance supporting a growing and diverse group of global customers. Discover how our newly developed MCP server is going to change the face of assessment delivery.
Hear real examples from organisations such as Inteleos, NCFE, and Qualifications Scotland illustrating how responsible AI and platform reliability are reshaping high- stakes assessment.
11:05am
Surpass Showreel – 2026 at a glance
11.10am
What’s coming in 2026/27
Speakers from Surpass Assessment
A concise preview of what’s coming in 2026/27.
11.20am
Improving item development with Surpass: Community story with Inteleos
Jeff Grove – Director of Assessment Operations, Inteleos
Discover how Inteleos, a global healthcare certification body, successfully adopted Surpass Copilot to accelerate item development while maintaining rigorous clinical standards. This session shares governance practices, SME feedback data, and the measurable gains achieved through safe, controlled AI assistance.
11.50am
Transforming financial literacy assessment with interactive tools: Community story with AlphaPlus
Dave Mellor – Director of Assessment, AlphaPlus
Discover how AlphaPlus are using interactive, web-based tools to transform the assessment of financial literacy within AQA Numeracy. By embedding realistic ‘mini websites’ directly into the assessment environment, learners engage with authentic tasks such as calculating net pay, modelling savings growth, and exploring budgeting decisions.
These tools sit alongside questions in Surpass, enabling candidates to apply their skills in context rather than answering in isolation. The approach supports deeper understanding of financial decision-making while increasing engagement and validity.
While rooted in numeracy, this model is highly flexible, with applications extending to areas such as data analysis, simulations and wider real-world problem solving.
12.10pm
Delivering secure, scalable Chromebook assessments in schools: Community story with WJEC
Laura Crook – e-Assessment Development Manager, WJEC
This session outlines the development of Chromebook‑supported secure client delivery within the Surpass Platform, designed to widen access to onscreen assessment while maintaining the security and integrity required for high‑stakes qualifications.
It explores the technical and delivery considerations involved in supporting managed Chromebook environments, including lock‑down controls, authentication, offline resilience and compatibility with existing centre infrastructure. Drawing on real delivery experience, the session highlights how secure Chromebook delivery can offer a scalable, cost‑effective option for schools, supporting equitable access without compromising exam controls, candidate experience, or regulatory expectations.
12.30pm
Lunch
1.30pm
Surpass Copilot IQ Sketch
1.35pm
Micro-presentations
Jeff Lutrell – Technical Product Owner, National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME)
This session highlights how a major medical board (NBME) enhanced SME workflows with the Surpass Task Management module, improved UI ergonomics, and operationalised early AI informed analysis.
Learn how small refinements delivered meaningful productivity gains at scale.
Amy McAlpine – Product Trainer, Surpass Assessment
Discover enhancements to media management, including the new side-panel, keyword support, clearer usage visibility, and improved search and filtering to help you manage assets more efficiently.
Chris Morrison – Senior Product Owner, Surpass Assessment
Ashleigh Greaves – Assessment Specialist and Technical Author, Surpass Assessment
Learn about updates to item workflows, including submitting items for review and new prompts that help prevent incomplete submissions across individual and shared review processes.
Sayali Dombe – Solutions Architect, Surpass Assessment
Sophie Grogan – Senior Product Owner, Surpass Assessment
Scott Flockton – Senior Solutions Architect, Surpass Assessment
Gray Mytton – Assessment Innovation Manager, NCFE
2.25pm
Quick‑fire features 25/26 – Surpass IQ
Jim Crawford – CCO & Company Director, Surpass Assessment
A first detailed look at IQ including what this is, how it works, what it means for delivering bespoke solutions, and how this has the potential to change the face of exam development, delivery and management forever.
2.40pm
Networking break and coffee
3pm
Quick‑fire features 25/26
Sophie Grogan – Senior Product Owner, Surpass Assessment
Jim Crawford – CCO & Company Director, Surpass Assessment
Romana Moss – Director of Education, Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM)
Observational assessment remains one of the most powerful ways to evaluate real world competence – capturing communication, professionalism, decision making, technical skills and applied knowledge in authentic contexts.
In this fast-paced overview, we’ll explore how modern digital tools can enhance reliability and reduce operational burden across formats such as OSCEs, workplace-based assessments, practical skills checks, and performance tasks.
Delegates will see how structured checklists, global judgement scales, exemplar anchors and rich examiner commentary can be captured consistently in Surpass, and how digital workflows support moderation, examiner calibration, bias reduction and longitudinal learner tracking.
We’ll also highlight how video-based scenarios, integrated CQTs, and hybrid models connect observational assessment with automated scoring pipelines like Serenity – creating a seamless, evidence-rich view of candidate performance-based scenarios.
3.40pm
Innovation update – Surpass Scora
Adam Foley – Head of Digital Innovation, Surpass Assessment
Alastair Black – Digital Assessment Manager, Qualifications Scotland
This session provides a detailed look at Surpass Scora, our new OCR and AI marking engine, including real pilot data from over 2,000 English and History scripts. It explores how accuracy, benchmarked against senior examiners, can help reduce teacher workload at scale.
Adam will revisit the Paper+ and TestPrep concepts, demonstrating how digitised responses can be captured while maintaining familiar exam conditions. The session will explore how organisations can realise the benefits of digital solutions while continuing to deliver paper-based examinations.
Joining Adam for this session, Alastair Black from Qualifications Scotland will provide a customer perspective on the use of TestPrep to support both assessment delivery and candidate preparation.
Finally, the session will explain why recent advances in security, OCR and operational readiness make now the right time to revisit hybrid assessment delivery.
4pm
AI policy update
Becca Murdoch – Chief Information Officer, Surpass Assessment
This session outlines key updates to Surpass AI policy frameworks in assessment, focusing on governance, transparency, and responsible deployment in high-stakes contexts. It explores how organisations can balance innovation with risk management, ensuring ethical, fair, and evidence-based use of AI in education and certification.
4.10pm
Student workshop panel discussion
Sonya Whitworth – Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Ceri Harper – Chief Services Officer, Surpass Assessment
In a hosted conversation with Surpass, hear from real people who have been through the assessment process, sharing their experiences honestly and openly with the awarding bodies in the room.
The goal is simple but powerful: to help the organisations that design, govern and deliver qualifications reconnect with the real people behind them – the candidates. We want them to share the stresses, the stakes, the sacrifices and their motivations.
4.55pm
Outro
Bob Gomersall – Chairman, Surpass Assessment
5pm
Finish
7pm
Evening networking event: Join us for a fun-filled night at Lane7
Taking place at Lane7 Manchester, this lively bowling, karaoke and games bar is the perfect setting to unwind and connect with fellow attendees. With boutique bowling lanes, pool tables, ping pong, darts, shuffleboard, beer pong, air hockey and pinball, there is plenty to keep you entertained throughout the evening.
Enjoy access to a private bar and tuck into a buffet meal while you network in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. Whether you are showing off your bowling skills, singing your heart out at karaoke or challenging colleagues to a game, there is something for everyone.
Book your place at this event as a free add-on when ordering your Surpass Conference tickets. There are limited tickets so don’t delay!
Day 2 – Friday 9 October
9am
Introduction
Bob Gomersall – Chairman, Surpass Assessment
9:05am
Beliefs about knowledge in a landscape of AI
Fiona Aubrey-Smith –Independent Consultant Researcher / Co-Founder of The National PedTech Partnership
In a landscape of an AI infused world, where does knowledge start and stop? In an assessment system which is designed to validate learning, where does that learning start and stop? In a global world filled with human beings, what is the human value-add in an assessment system powered by AI?
These big questions will serve as a set of provocations for a thought provoking and interactive session. We will invite you to challenge some of the assumptions that have underpinned previous ways of working, and to consider what our collective ‘value-add’ as human leaders might be as we navigate the future of assessment together.
10:05am
Networking break and coffee
10:20am
Micro-workshops – focused discussion on key areas we’re keen to develop
Jim Crawford – CCO & Company Director, Surpass Assessment
Is AI eroding the pathways through which professional competence is developed – and what does that mean for assessment and certification?
- Is AI disproportionately removing early-career roles that traditionally build foundational expertise?
- What happens to professional mastery if fewer people gain real-world experience?
- Could we see a future where AI is increasingly unchecked by human judgement?
- What role should awarding bodies play in protecting and redefining pathways to competence?
Rethinking validity in an AI-assisted world
- What are we really assessing in an AI-enabled profession: knowledge, judgement, or AI collaboration?
- Should AI be banned, controlled, or embedded within high-stakes assessment?
- Does ‘AI-free assessment’ still reflect real-world professional practice?
- How must assessment design evolve to ensure valid, trusted measures of competence?
From exam events to continuous assessment ecosystems
- Are episodic, high-stakes exams still fit for purpose in measuring real-world competence?
- What does a shift to continuous, programmatic assessment look like in practice?
- How can observational, workplace-based and longitudinal evidence be integrated?
- What are the regulatory and operational barriers to moving beyond traditional exams?
Scaling quality: Can we expand assessment without breaking it?
- Where does quality break down as assessment programmes scale (items, marking, operations)?
- How can AI and automation support growth without introducing unacceptable risk?
- What is the right balance between human expertise and machine efficiency?
- What new operating models are needed to maintain consistency, fairness and trust at scale?
11:45am
Scaling for AOs: Extending the Surpass ecosystem through real‑world integration
Adam Smith – Technical Architect, Aspire Systems Digital Solutions Limited
Aspire Systems Digital Solutions Limited has developed a suite of applications that integrate seamlessly with the Surpass Platform, supporting a range of awarding organisations. These integrations extend the core capabilities of Surpass by enabling tailored workflows, enhanced data handling and improved assessment delivery and processing.
This session explores how Aspire has architected and deployed these solutions across different regulatory and operational contexts, highlighting the flexibility of the Surpass ecosystem. It will provide insight into integration approaches, real-world use cases, and the impact on assessment efficiency, scalability and user experience. Attendees will gain a practical understanding of how custom applications can complement established assessment platforms to meet diverse organisational needs.
12pm
Lunch
1pm
Surpass Innovation Award
Bob Gomersall – Chairman, Surpass Assessment
The Surpass Innovation Award recognises members of the Surpass Community who showcase unique ways to overcome assessment challenges, driving forward new ways of working and a cutting-edge approach to creating and delivering online examinations.
1:15pm
Community Story with the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)
Mandy Gill – Executive Director, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)
1:35pm
Balancing fairness, communication and candidate support in high‑stakes assessment: Community Story with GPhC
Gemma Baker – Common Registration Assessment Delivery Lead, GPhC
Niall Stewart-Kelcher – Specialist Assessment Lead (Pharmacist), GPhC
This session explores how assessment design, candidate support and communication strategies can work together to ensure fairness, transparency and positive candidate outcomes where candidates have a limited number of assessment attempts within time-bound progression requirements.
Drawing on real-world experience, the session will examine how clear, timely communication helps manage candidate expectations, reduces anxiety and supports informed decision-making throughout the assessment journey. It will also highlight practical approaches to deliver the assessment with a fair, robust and accessible format.
Attendees will gain insight into how organisations can balance regulatory requirements and to assure the public that trainee pharmacists have met a common threshold of apply the knowledge and skills necessary for safe and effective person-centered care and professional practice in the UK, at the point of registration.
1.55pm
Upcoming quick-fire features
Emma Gilmartin – Senior Customer Success Manager, Surpass Assessment
A rapid preview of features coming in the next release cycle – covering UX enhancements, delivery improvements, governance tools and AI-powered productivity boosts.
Clear call‑outs will help teams prepare for adoption.
2.10pm
Surpass solutions update
Gareth Hopkins – Solutions Manager, Surpass Assessment
A practical tour of hands-on and performance-based assessment capabilities, including CQT frameworks and simulation-based item types.
2:20pm
Networking break and coffee
2.35pm
Delivering accessible assessment at scale across the Caribbean: Community Story with CXC
James Young – Manager of Measurement & Evaluation, Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)
Hear from CXC, sharing their research on improving their accessibility offering using the technology available with the Surpass Platform.
2.55pm
Surpass Test Centre Delivery and online proctoring update
Ceri Harper – Chief Services Officer, Surpass Assessment
The Surpass Test Centre Network provides a global, high‑quality, professionally managed network of 1,000+ audited exam centres, delivering secure session‑based and on‑demand exams across more than 100 countries.
Centres are selected for their high standards, trained staff, robust security procedures and consistent candidate experience. The network offers flexible capacity, enhanced in‑session monitoring and a fully managed service to support both large‑scale and bespoke assessment programmes.
Surpass also integrates with leading proctoring partners to enable secure remote exam delivery, including live invigilation, AI‑supported monitoring, dual‑camera setups, secure browser lockdown and record‑and‑review capabilities. Candidates can test from home or work with full malpractice detection, comprehensive pre‑exam checks, in‑exam technical support, and auditor visibility – providing a flexible, scalable alternative or complement to centre‑based testing.
3.35pm
Fireside chat – Looking back at 40 years of Surpass
Bob Gomersall – Chairman, Surpass Assessment
Jim Crawford – CCO & Company Director, Surpass Assessment
4pm