2026 Conference
The 2026 conference welcomed over 140 attendees and more than 40 organisations.
Watch presentations
From the key themes of AI, skills and responsible innovation to secure digital delivery and candidate experience, these 2026 Surpass Conference recordings bring together expert insights, Surpass updates, Community Stories and real-world case studies, sharing practical experiences, challenges and ideas from across the assessment community.
Keynotes & panel sessions
- Keynote – AI and digitisation: The great skills reset – Navigating change and opportunities for the future of workplace skills and assessment.
- Keynote – Beliefs about knowledge in a landscape of AI
- Panel session – The human behind the result
- Panel session – Fireside chat:Looking back at 40 years of Surpass
Surpass Updates
- Surpass company update
- Surpass Showreel
- Stronger together: Building the Surpass Community
- Innovation update: Surpass IQ
- Innovation update: Surpass Scora
- Responsible AI in assessments: Our ISO 42001 journey
- Findings from Surpass Tutor: Impact of formative learning on assessment performance
- Upcoming quick-fire features
- Introducing Cardea
- Surpass Solutions update
- Surpass Test Centre Delivery and online proctoring update
- Emerging AI trends, industry foresight, and the future of assessment
Community Stories
- Community Story with Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) – From procurement to partnership: Delivering assessment transformation
- Community Story with AlphaPlus – Transforming financial literacy assessment with interactive tools
- Community Story with WJEC – Delivering secure, scalable Chromebook assessments in schools
- Community Story with Dainis & Co and Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) – Implementing a clinical exam solution
- Community Story with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) – From stabilisation to modernisation
- Community Story with GPhC – Balancing fairness, communication and candidate support in high‑stakes assessment
Case study
Keynote – AI and digitisation: The great skills reset – Navigating change and opportunities for the future of workplace skills and assessment.
Explore how AI and digitisation are reshaping workplace skills, learner expectations and the way we assess for a changing world. Drawing on lessons from the evolution of digital assessment, this keynote considers how we can balance risk and opportunity while developing qualifications that reflect emerging employer needs and the enduring importance of human skills.
Video is password protected. Conference delegates have been emailed the password. Non-delegates can request access.
Speakers:
Clare Morley
Vocational qualifications Consultant
Surpass company update
As AI, regulation and changing expectations reshape assessment, trusted collaboration has never been more important. In this company update, Surpass Co-CEOs Sonya Whitworth and Andy McAnulla share how Surpass is working with its community to navigate change responsibly, combining strong governance and human oversight with customer-led innovation.
Speakers:
Andy McAnulla
Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Sonya Whitworth
Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Stronger together: Building the Surpass Community
Learn how Surpass is creating opportunities for collaboration through customer user groups, strategic Foresight Boards, and Community Spotlights that celebrate success and inspire new ideas.
Speakers:
Shannon Starrs
VP, Customer Success, Surpass Assessment
Ellen Wood
Head of Customer Success, Surpass Assessment
Surpass Showreel
Surpass achievements over the last year.
Community Stories: From procurement to partnership: Delivering assessment transformation – Community Story with Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)
This session examines how CISI and Surpass worked together to migrate the CISI assessments, expand delivery through test centres and remote invigilation, and deliver a seamless transition for candidates without disrupting assessment delivery.
Speakers:
Mandy Gill
Executive Director of Global Learning, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)
Community Story with AlphaPlus: Transforming financial literacy assessment with interactive tools
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.
Speakers:
Dave Mellor
Director of Assessment and Qualifications, AlphaPlus
Community Story with WJEC: Delivering secure, scalable Chromebook assessments in schools
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. 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.
Speakers:
Laura Crook
e-Assessment Development Manager, WJEC
Community Story with Dainis & Co and Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM): Implementing a clinical exam solution
Explore how modern digital tools can enhance reliability and reduce operational burden in assessments, using traditional clinical examination formats (e.g. OSCEs, vivas and interview-style exams), and see how Surpass have responded to their industries’ challenges and developed solutions in the Surpass Platform, including how examiner scoring rubrics, candidate scheduling and live exam delivery can create a seamless, evidence-rich view of candidate performance-based scenarios.
Speakers:
Amanda Dainis
CEO, Dainis & Co
Jim Crawford
CCO & Executive Director, Surpass Assessment
Romana Moss
Director of Education, Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM)
Innovation update – Surpass IQ
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.
Speakers:
Chris Morrison
Senior Product Owner, Surpass Assessment
Innovation update – Surpass Scora
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. Alastair Black from Qualifications Scotland provides a customer perspective on the use of TestPrep to support both assessment delivery and candidate preparation.
Speakers:
Adam Foley
Head of Digital Innovation, Surpass Assessment
Alastair Black
Digital Assessment Manager, Qualifications Scotland
Responsible AI in assessments – Our ISO 42001 journey
This session explores how Surpass approached the challenge of governing AI services through the implementation of an ISO 42001 certified AI Management System.
Speakers:
Becca Murdoch
Chief Information Officer, Surpass Assessment
Keynote – The human behind the result
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.
Behind every assessment is a person with their own ambitions, pressures and challenges. In this series, we hear directly from six young people whose stories remind us of our responsibility to give every candidate a fair opportunity to demonstrate what they know, what they can do and what they might become.
Speakers:
Sonya Whitworth
Co-CEO, Surpass Assessment
Ceri Harper
Chief Services Officer, Surpass Assessment
Grace and Jack
Primary school learners, Wales
Jack and Grace are primary school pupils in Wales, where learners are introduced to diagnostic assessments from an early age and repeat them throughout primary education to help teachers identify strengths and learning gaps. They talk very naturally about assessment – for them it’s part of learning and not something to be worried about, and they understand that assessment helps them see what they can improve.
Ida
Student with reasonable adjustments
Ida, a dyslexic learner, reflects on her GCSE and A-Level journey, the reality of using extra time and other accommodations, and the sacrifices she made to pursue her goals. Her story offers a powerful reminder that accessibility arrangements aren’t an advantage, but a way to remove barriers so assessments can measure what a candidate truly knows and can do.
Alistair
Medical school applicant
Alistair, an aspiring doctor, reflects on the high-stakes journey through admissions tests, applications and university interviews, and the pressures that surround each stage of selection. His experience reminds us that assessment is about more than measuring ability, and that creating a more comfortable, supportive testing experience doesn’t make assessment easier, but helps make it fairer.
Elliot
Commercial pilot trainee
Elliot shares the intensity of training to become a pilot, tackling degree-level content at pace while knowing that one failed element could put his lifelong ambition at risk. His story highlights the balance between maintaining the rigorous standards essential for high-stakes professions and recognising the immense pressure candidates carry through assessment.
Henry
Accountancy degree apprentice
Henry reflects on the relentless challenge of balancing full-time work, studying, revision and personal life while working towards professional qualifications. His experience highlights that success isn’t simply about ability, but also the support candidates receive when things don’t go to plan.
Curtis
Electrician and Lecturer
Curtis shares his journey from university to electrician apprentice, qualified electrician and ultimately teaching the next generation. His story shows how the right assessment methods, from practical observation to professional discussion, can give candidates the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do, rather than simply what they can recall.
Final question – Candidate panel
Across six very different journeys, one message comes through clearly: every candidate wants the opportunity to perform at their best. To close the series, we asked them all the same question: if you could change one thing about assessment, what would it be?
Findings from Surpass Tutor – Impact of formative learning on assessment performance
Hear the results of an in-depth study on the educational impact of real-time automated feedback in formative assessments, through a comparison between Classification Model (CM) AI systems and Large Language Models (LLM – Surpass Tutor) – including statistical outcomes in terms of attainment level progression and a qualitative analysis of AI-generated feedback conducted by leading educators.
Speakers:
Gray Mytton
Innovation Manager, NCFE
From market opportunity to digital assessment: IOSH’s Surpass journey
Discover how IOSH brought new professional qualifications to market with Surpass. This session explores how IOSH entered a crowded market transforming how occupational health and safety had traditionally been assessed, and what they learned along the way, including learner feedback, lessons from implementation, and how emerging opportunities such as AI, on-demand assessment and next-generation digital testing could shape what comes next.
Speakers:
Mike Smith
Executive Director, IOSH
Scaling for AOs: Extending the Surpass ecosystem through real‑world integration
This session explores how Aspire has architected and deployed 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.solutions across different regulatory and operational contexts, highlighting the flexibility of the Surpass ecosystem.
Speakers:
Adam Smith
Head of Technology, Aspire Systems
Keynote – Beliefs about knowledge in a landscape of AI
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?
Video is password protected. Conference delegates have been emailed the password. Non-delegates can request access.
Speakers:
Fiona Aubrey-Smith
Independent Consultant Researcher / Co-Founder of The National PedTech Partnership
Community Story with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA): From stabilisation to modernisation
Hear from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), the leading accountancy body in South Africa.
Speakers:
Nombuyiselo Tsukudu
Project Director: Exams, South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)
Thamsanqa Tshuma
Examinations Officer, South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)
Community Story with GPhC: Balancing fairness, communication and candidate support in high‑stakes assessment
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 – and how organisations can balance regulatory requirements and ensure that candidates have met a common threshold of knowledge and skills necessary for professional practice.
Speakers:
Gemma Baker
Common Registration Assessment Delivery Lead, GPhC
Niall Stewart-Kelcher
Specialist Assessment Lead (Pharmacist), GPhC
Upcoming quick-fire features
A rapid preview of features coming in the next Surpass release cycle – covering UX enhancements, delivery improvements, governance tools and AI-powered productivity boosts.
Speakers:
Emma Hall
Head of Business Development, Surpass Assessment
Ashleigh Greaves
Assessment Specialist and Technical Author, Surpass Assessment
Introducing Cardea
Discover Cardea, Surpass’s next-generation secure delivery application, designed to provide a consistent, secure assessment experience across Windows, Mac, iPad and Chromebook devices while simplifying deployment and updates.
Speakers:
Emma Gilmartin
Senior Customer Success Manager, Surpass Assessment
Surpass Solutions update
A practical tour of hands-on and performance-based assessment capabilities, including CQT frameworks and simulation-based item types.
Speakers:
Scott Flockton
Senior Solutions Architect, Surpass Assessment
Surpass Test Centre Delivery and online proctoring update
This session provides an update on the continued evolution of Surpass Test Centre Network and Online Proctoring services, highlighting recent enhancements, strategic developments and innovations designed to strengthen assessment delivery, and give an insight into Surpass’s approach to test security.
Speakers:
Ceri Harper
Chief Services Officer, Surpass Assessment
Emerging AI trends, industry foresight, and the future of assessment
This session explores the key trends shaping the future of assessment, drawing on insights from Surpass test development services, industry foresight boards, and emerging sector research. See how organisations are adapting their assessment programmes to meet changing candidate, regulatory, and business needs.
Speakers:
Ibi Layi-Ojo
Chief Assessment Officer, Surpass Assessment
Fireside chat – Looking back at 40 years of Surpass
Speakers:
Bob Gomersall
Chairman, Surpass Assessment
Jim Crawford
CCO & Executive Director, Surpass Assessment
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