Following an intensive programme of collaborative research in ten secondary schools, the authors set out the case for a fresh approach to assessment in the arts, an approach which gives the student a voice and at the same time allows the teacher access to the student's subjective world - that world in which particular aesthetic projects arise and unique aesthetic judgements are made. The vehicle of assessment becomes student-teacher talk: the reflective conversation. The research raises serious questions about the focus, emphasis and direction of the arts in education within the framework set out by the National Curriculum in the UK.