Parents at a town hall on Thursday warned that group project marks could penalise hardworking pupils as they challenged education officials to explain how continuous assessment would protect individual achievement under the proposed primary‑to‑secondary placement model.

The officials sought to reassure parents about the continuous assessment component of the proposed replacement for the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination, which would now account for 50 per cent of a student’s placement score.

But Raphael Saul, the father of a nine-year-old who would join the first cohort under the proposed system in September, suggested that while he supported project-based learning and recognised the value of collaboration, a student’s placement score could be influenced by others’ performance in a group.