In the autumn of 2000, the Swedish government started a five-year trial where a limited number of municipalities and schools were allowed to abandon the current national timetable for comprehensive school. This decision meant that 79 communities with about 900 schools in Sweden participated in the trial on voluntary basis. During the trial period no limits have been placed on the amount of time spent on each subject in comprehensive school. Only a guaranteed minimum time, 6665 hours, for all subjects together, is mandated. Noticeable is that national curricula, national grading criteria and national tests still are unchanged. The Swedish school system is seen as one of the most decentralised systems in the OECD. In the beginning of the 1990s, governance by rules and directives was replaced in Sweden by governance by objectives and results. This meant a transfer of decisions, responsibility and financial resources from the central authority to the municipality and the local schools. The timetable-free trial is being evaluated nationally. The key questions are: Is a timetable necessary? And if so, what form should it take? Earlier results have been reported on ECER-conferences, 2003 and 2004. This paper is derived from a study focused on what happens to assessment and grading in timetable-free schools. Groups of pupils in the last year of comprehensive school (year 9) have been interviewed about the effects of assessment and grading. One school is a "timetable-free" school, the other school works with the national timetable un-changed. Twenty group-interviews with 5-6 pupils in each group were carried out. The overall aim has been to study the effects of assessment and grading from pupils view in relation to "time-table free" education. Earlier results from our evaluation project have shown increasing "free choice areas" for pupils, which mean that pupils can decide what to work with during scheduled time of the week. What happens to assessment and grading in those "free choice areas" in terms of control and visibility (Bernstein, 1977; Jackson, 1968; Broady 1998)? Is there a risk for a more hidden assessment and grading procedure and if so, which are the new criteria? The results from the interviews indicate that the basis of school assessment and grading is changing. Increasing "free choice" for pupils in schools is met by increased attention to time allocation and time-keeping. The importance of time-discipline and control is mentioned in the interviews and even pupils insecurity of when they are assessed and on what they are assessed. The control function is very explicit in year 9 in the comprehensive school (grundskola), because of a close connection between grading and admission to national programs in the upper-secondary school (gymnasieskola). There is a big risk for a reverse (reaction) back to an earlier époque in Swedish grading history in 1950s, when order and behaviour were assessed in special grading terms."The circle is closed ".