It is not only institutional learning that has caused the rise in average total scores under the teaching quality assessment. In May 1995, I was a member of one of the first assessment teams applying the "new methodology" (ie, grading 1 to 4). At that time, Hefce's explicit position was that 24 represented perfection and that perfection, by definition, could not be achieved.
Meryl Aldridge
University of Nottingham