Credit can be used to recognise all kinds of achievements. But there are no short cuts to doing it properly. Perhaps the clever thing to do is to take the best of practice in using credit, to observe closely how credit impacts on the reform of all education in the UK, and learn from these experiences. As the notion of credit gains currency across Europe, the author argues that it is important to go beyond the UK borders to grow and share new ideas about using credit to recognise achievement. In this article, the author explores what recent research says about credit practice, and the potential for credit to support reform of the education system in the UK, and, perhaps, to act as catalyst for reform in Sweden and in the whole of the European Union. (Contains 3 notes.)