Assessment in Primary and Middle Schools

Marten Shipman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000047806
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Effective evaluation of a pupil's performance and of resources available is a vital part of successful teaching. Originally published in 1983, this non-statistical guide aims to help teachers organise their work so as to improve their assessment of their pupils and also to analyse their own management efforts.

A model is developed showing how teachers can progressively structure their work to increase the objectivity of their assessment. The use of published tests and the production of tests by teachers is covered, but the focus throughout is on the part played by assessment in the organisation of learning. The steps recommended are arranged so that the first yield the largest return. But none requires any statistical expertise or a large investment of time.

The second part of the book shows how schools can be evaluated by their staff – school organisation, staff development and the curriculum are given special attention in this step-by-step guide to effective and rewarding school assessment.

PART ONE

EVALUATING THE PUPILS

1 ASSESSMENT AS A PART OF TEACHING

Here is a selection of the activities of a primary schoolteacher, with a class of ten-year-olds, which I observed during one morning's work.

• (1) Explaining to the whole class, and to individual children, why they went wrong in some of their work grouping regular and irregular shapes.
• (2) Advising the class and individuals how to avoid similar mistakes from there on.
• (3) Commenting on the quality of individual work and giving it a 'Good', 'Fair' or 'Poor' with a red ball-point pen.
• (4) Moving children from one group to another to match them to the level of work of the others in the groups.
• (5) Talking to me about the probable success or failure of individual children in the years to come.
• (6) Discussing with the children as a class, and later with myself, the quality of the work just completed.

These six activities could be found in many primary or middle school classrooms. They are part of normal teaching activities as children are helped to overcome difficulties, encouraged so that they carry on working cheerfully and productively, and given some idea of the quality of work they are doing. It is also normal for teachers to make adjustments to the curriculum as they go, and plan to change the ways things are to be done in the future. Those six activities could be labelled Diagnosis, Guidance, Grading, Selection, Prediction and Evaluation. These are the major purposes of assessment identified by Macintosh and Hale (1976). Teaching and assessment are inseparable.

The impossibility of separating teaching from assessment can be observed wherever teaching occurs. As the teacher spoke to the class, or to individual children, she was helping by judging how well they were doing, how they could do better, and how she could organise the work to help. Much of this assessment was instantaneous and spontaneous. Here we have a brief, lively session on multiplication tables. Within ten minutes there are all six assessment procedures. The teacher assesses through her ability to detect understanding and bewilderment, enthusiasm and boredom, minority and majority understanding. Sometimes it is assessment based on answers given, but it can be through the light in the eyes of the children, the waxing and waning of enthusiasm. As the teacher interprets signs from the children there is an immediate curriculum development, changes in teaching style, emphasis, speed or topic. Discussing this over coffee after ninety minutes on the move, the teacher remarked

It's never the same, even if I plan it to be. They can be asleep one day and bubbling the next. You have to see how it is going and adjust. You've also got to jolly some along and stop others getting all the attention. I suppose you learn it as you do it.

That teacher did very little formal assessing beyond occasional grading in an impressionistic way, filling in a report card at the end of each year showing progress in the basic skills and a grade for overall attainment, and collecting exampl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part One: Evaluating the Pupils
• Part Two: Evaluating the Schools
• Appendix: Useful References
• Bibliography
• Index