Assessment in the Primary Classroom

Principles and practice

Sarah Earle

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781526482303
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Evaluation & Assessment in Education

Essential reading to support principled assessment decisions in the classroom
Assessment has become an increasingly complex area for primary schools in recent years, with schools and academy trusts trying to create their own ways of assessing without levels. Trainee teachers find it hard to understand key principles in assessment when practice in each of their school experiences is so varied. This ?essentials? text supports trainee and beginning teachers to understand the current context and consider essential principles for good practice in primary assessment. The book: - features explanations of key terminology
- includes practical examples from classrooms and schools
- supports teacher assessment literacy
- explores the assessment system as a whole
- covers formative and summative assessment, pupil progress, data and moderation.

1 Introduction

Sarah Earle

Purpose of this chapter

In this chapter we will:

• explain the importance of assessment for teaching in the primary school;
• consider the many purposes and implications of assessment;
• introduce the book and its chapters.

Who is this book for?

This book provides an introduction to assessment in the primary school. It is aimed at any in the teaching profession who are either considering principled assessment for the first time or those who would like to take a fresh look at the assessment practices in their school. Thus, it will be useful for both those new to teaching and those who are responsible for changing practices across the school. Examples are largely drawn from England and Wales, but the principles explored in this book are relevant to any context.

It is easy to get used to a system, assume that the status quo must continue because that is ‘how it has always been’. However, educational norms can change and what once felt essential can be re-evaluated to decide on its necessity. For example, the growth of the accountability system in England led to a concern to evidence learning, with extensive marking policies becoming the norm. This led to such practices as ‘triple marking’ whereby teachers would respond to pupils’ responses to their marking. Practices such as triple marking and frequent collection of assessment data (‘data drops’) built over time into the expected norm, rather than an occasional strategy, which made the system unmanageable, sparking calls for workload reduction (Teacher Workload Advisory Group, 2018). The place of marking will be explored further in Chapter 3; suffice to say that many schools are now rewriting their marking policies to become ‘feedback policies’ that focus on the purpose of the interaction, rather than the colour of the pen.

Why is an understanding of assessment important?

Assessment is a powerful driver in education: it influences school and classroom culture; it determines what is taught and how; and it directly impacts on pupil and teacher conceptualisations of learning (Edwards, 2013). Assessment is a complex, embedded and integral part of teaching with a multitude of strategies, purposes and consequences. As pupil experience is shaped by assessment practices, it is essential for such practices to be well understood.

It can be tempting to feel that there is no need to make decisions about assessment because we just have to ‘do what we are told’. However, underlying this ‘gut-feeling’ is the assumption that assessment is summative, that its sole purpose is for summarising attainment and comparing pupils in a standardised way, which will be spelled out to us in statutory guidelines. However, this is only a small part of the assessment story. Assessment also includes the non-statutory school processes; the end of topic checks; the start of topic elicitation activities; the conversations with parents or senior leaders or pupils; the tweaks to the next or current lesson in response to feedback from pupils. In short, assessment is a key part of the teaching and learning cycle, as represented in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 The teaching, learning and assessment cycle

Figure 1.1 is a common way of representing the relationship between teaching, learning and assessment, demonstrating the importance of all three. This can be understood at a micro level, within the lesson, or at a macro level, from lesson to lesson or term to term. Embedded in the representation is also the way that assessment can both inform teaching (formative) and can summarise learning (summative), since the teacher could start with an assessment to help them to plan their teaching or end with an assessment to check on the learning that has taken place. However, it also appears to suggest a neat order and separation of actions, which does not capture the ‘messiness’ of classroom teaching. Figure 1.2 proposes an alternative representation, which shows the multiple places for assessment within the teaching and learning cycle.

Figure 1.2 provides more detail on the different roles of assessment in the teaching and learning cycle. The diagram highlights that formative assessment can take place both within and between lessons, with on-the-spot adjustments to teaching within the lesson and longer term adjustments to planning for the next lessons. The assessment becomes formative when the information is used to support future learning, as will be discussed further in Chapter 2, when we consider assessment terminology in more detail. The summative role of assessment is also noted in Figure 1.2, where assessment is used to summarise attainment at a particular point in time. As with all diagrams, the representation is a simplification because learning experiences cannot be categorised so neatly in practice; however, the aim was to draw attention to the multiple roles of assessment, which will be explored more fully in the rest of the book.

Figure 1.2 Assessment in the teaching and learning cycle

Having established that assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning, it is easier to justify the importance of understanding its principles, so that informed decisions can be made about practice in the classroom. Teachers’ understanding and application of assessment is sometimes referred to as ‘assessment literacy’. Klenowski and Wyatt-Smith (2014) assert that high-quality assessment requires teachers to have well developed assessment literacy (p1), an understanding of assessment, which will be a recurring theme throughout the book. Assessment practice will represent a complex mix of assessment knowledge and priorities at an individual, school and national level. DeLuca and Johnson (2017) note that, despite widespread recognition of the need for assessment literate teachers, research has indicated a low level of assessment knowledge in the teaching profession (p121), hence the need for texts like this one.

Understanding and application of assessment is a requirement for qualification as a teacher. Table 1.1 contains extracts from the teachers’ standards documents from across the UK. Each discuss the use of assessment as an essential part of the qualification to become, and continue to be, a teacher.

Table 1.1

Assessment literacy applies to all stages of a teacher’s career and all areas of the curriculum. The teacher standards in Table 1.1 clearly link assessment to pupil progress; assessment is a tool for planning for and developing experiences that will enhance learning.

Placing assessment in context

Assessment is fundamental to the practice of education; it is not neutral, but is value-laden. It influences both the teaching and those being taught: assessment does not objectively measure what is already there, but rather creates and shapes what is measured (Stobart, 2008, p1). Assessment processes determine what is valuable to learn and...