Assessment in Action in the Primary School

Colin Conner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135700577
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Assessment has become one of the key issues in primary education over the past 10 years. This edited volume of essays brings together perspectives from all the significant participants involved in assessment in the primary school: teachers, headteachers, LEA advisors, inspectors, pupils, academics and researchers. The contributions illustrate effective assessment, and examine how it is, and can be, achieved. It will be of interest to school assessment co-ordinators, deputies and heads following NPQH courses, and lecturers on IE courses.

1 Assessment in the Primary School: A Review of Current Issues^*

Colin Conner

Introduction

Assessment is an extremely topical and important issue in education at the present time and it is one that is the subject of international debate. In the United Kingdom, changes in assessment practice have affected all stages of education. James (1996), for example, suggests that from early years education through to adult education the purposes, content, form and methods of assessment are the subject of reflection, analysis and modification. James lists the following examples to illustrate the range of the current assessment debate as it currently effects all levels of the education service:

• the assessment of young children entering school, including 'baseline' assessment;
• the introduction of National Curriculum assessment and testing for school pupils from 5 to 14 in England and Wales and comparable arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland;
• the diagnostic assessment of children with special educational needs for the purposes of statementing and the allocation of special resource provision;
• the nature and value of examinations at 16+, especially coursework elements in the GCSE;
• the construction and use of league tables of test and examination results and the relative advantages and disadvantages of 'raw' or 'valueadded' versions;
• the development of vocational assessment post 16 (NVQs and GNVQs) and the relationship with the academic 'gold standard' of A levels;
• the assessment of modular courses in further and higher education and the accreditation of prior learning (APL) and prior experiential learning (APEL);
• work-based assessment and performance appraisal.

Many of these issues are not of immediate relevance to primary teachers, but since the introduction of the 1988 Education Act it is probably true to say that one of the most significant effects on primary education has been the overwhelming demands of the assessment process. It has resulted in considerable additional expectations being placed upon primary teachers and has been the subject of continual change. It might have been hoped that we would move into a period of calm and a return to common sense with a change of government in 1997, but it is clear that this is not to be. The government white paper, Excellence in Schools emphasizes that,

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^* This is an extended version of a chapter in Whitebread, D. (1999) The Psychology of Teaching and Learning in Primary School, London: Routledge.

Our drive to improve children’s literacy and numeracy skills will be assisted by rigorous assessment and testing at ages 7 and 11. In addition, SCAA supplied all primary schools earlier this year with optional tests in English and mathematics (including mental arithmetic) for 9 year olds. We expect these to be widely used. (DfEE, 1997: para. 2.36) [It is also expected that optional tests will be available for 8- and 10-year-olds.]

The white paper also recognizes that our education system is among the most extensively assessed in the world and clearly proposes to keep up this momentum: ‘We already hold much more comprehensive data than is held in other countries. We are consulting on proposals for further improvements in the collection, dissemination and use of pupil performance and comparative data through better use of IT…(para. 3.6).

But have we learned anything from our experience of the last ten years? This chapter draws upon some of the research evidence related to the implementation of national curriculum assessment and considers what it tells us about effective ways of assessing children’s learning. The next section opens the debate by a reflection on some of the different ways in which assessment has been interpreted.

Contrasting views about assessment and its associated purposes

Assessment of school children is an inexact science. We are hampered in our endeavours by both the misconceptions of history and the misrepresentations of politics. Our children are owed more than this. (Pauline Lyseight-Jones, 1994)

Whenever the word assessment is used, it can conjure up a wide variety of images. Rows of desks in quiet examination halls, working to a set deadline, trying to remember the answers to obscure and seemingly irrelevant questions. Sometimes it dredges up long-forgotten memories of the 11+, taking a musical examination, a driving test, an interview, or being observed in a classroom. Often, these memories are tinged with uncertainty, unhappiness, and even a feeling of failure. It is important to remember therefore, that assessment for many of us has been an emotional experience, and it is not surprising that we should reject placing learners in such situations too early in their lives. However, assessment is open to many interpretations. David Satterly (1989:1) in his study of assessment in schools suggests that one view of assessment is as, ‘…hard nosed objectivity, an obsession with the measurement of performances (many of which are assumed to be relatively trivial), and an increasingly technical vocabulary which defies most teachers…’ Alternatively assessment is seen as a sifting and sorting mechanism, ‘… a means by which schools and teachers sort out children for occupations of different status in a hierarchically ordered society’ (Satterly, 1989:1).
The classic list of assessment purposes comes from Macintosh and Hale (1976), who identified six main purposes for assessment;

• diagnosis: finding out what precisely a student or group of students has learned with a view to planning curriculum and teaching to meet their needs;
• evaluation. using assessment information as evidence in judging the value of educational provision;
• guidance: helping students to make appropriate career or course choices;
• grading: identifying the level at which a student is performing and assigning a number or letter to signify the standard attained;
• selection: identifying those students most suitable for a particular class, school or form of employment;
• prediction: identifying the potential or aptitude of individuals for a particular kind of training or employment in order to avoid the waste of talent.

The influence of these ideas can be seen in the comments of more recent writers on assessment. Harlen (1994), for example has suggested that assessment in education takes place in a wide variety of contexts and for many different purposes. She suggests that those concerning individual pupils might include informing the next steps in teaching, summarizing achievement at a certain time or for the purposes of selection, certification or guidance. In this context, Harlen suggests that, ‘A comprehensive definition of assessment includes the processes of gathering, interpreting, recording and use of information about a pupil’s response to an educational task’ (1994:11). She adds that pupils can also be assessed for other more external purposes such as part of national surveys of educational achievement or for research purposes. This overview of potential interpretations and purposes of assessment can be extended further. For example, Berwick (1994) identified two main categories, those concerned with the educational development of pupils and those concerned with the outcomes of the educational process:

Assessment and the educational development of pupils

• assessment to motivate pupils and improve future performance;
• assessment to provide feedback (to the pupil, parents and other teachers);
• assessment to diagnose strengths and weaknesses so that future performance can be improved;
• assessment to differentiate learning opportunities appropriately;
• assessment to guide the pupil in making appropriate choices;
• assessment to select a pupil for a course, a teaching group or a career.

Assessments concerned with the outcomes of education

• the grading of pupil performance;
• the ranking of pupils against external norms and against each other;
• assessments to identify and maintain a schooPs standards;
• assessments to evaluate a school’s effectiveness;
• assessments to evaluate teacher’s effectiveness.

A final alternative definition and associated purpose is obtained by tracing the roots of the word assessment.Satterly traces this to the latin assidere—to sit beside. If you combine this with education, which can be traced back to the Latin educare or ‘to bring out’, educational assessment should be seen as the process of sitting beside the learners and bringing out the potential that exists within them, creating an opportunity for them to demonstrate what they know, what they can do and what they understand. Given such an interpretation, assessment in education becomes a positive experience for both the teacher and the learner, a fundamental feature of teaching and successful learning. However, it is important to recognize that although assessment is an essential feature of the teaching and learning process, it should not be seen as an isolated activity, ‘a bolt-on extra’. For some time there has been a recognition that pupils, parents, governors, local authorities and central government all have an interest in the assessments that we generate. As Hook suggests, Teachers today are being held increasingly accountable for their pupils’ progress, and classrooms have become more public places with the progressive involvement of parent bodies and governments in curriculum planning and development’ (1985:4).
In establishing a routine for considering how assessment might become a regular feature of planning for learning, it is likely to contribute significantly to children’s progress and also to improve the quality of the learning provided in school as a whole. This was recognized as being of particular significance in the Gulbenkian Report, The Arts in Schools (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1982), where it was suggested that:

Assessments of pupils are not, nor can they be, statements of absolute ability. They are statements about achievements within the framework of educational opportunities that have actually been provided. In some degree every assessment of a pupil is also an assessment of the teachers and of the school. (para. 130)

The report went on to argue that it is essential that schools need to continually monitor and review the quality of their educational provision and their methods of working, that is, to engage in a process of Educational Evaluation, which is seen as,

…a more general process than assessment in that it looks beyond the pupil to the style, the materials and the circumstances of teaching and learning. If teachers need to assess pupils they also need to evaluate their own practice. Although they have different purposes, assessment and evaluation are obviously linked. Teachers and pupils alike need information on each other’s activities and perceptions if their work together is to advance. Assessment and evaluation should provide this as a basis for informed description and intelligent judgment. (1982: para. 131)

The report continues to suggest that if we are to regard teaching as a profession, it is insufficient to rely on ‘gut reaction’ or what we feel to be the case. It is important that any judgments, whether they are about the progress of an individual or about the effectiveness of a school’s practice, must be supported by evidence. Before any serious consideration can be given to the organization and structuring of assessment in a school or classroom, it is essential that beliefs, understandings and expectations are made explicit. This is because such beliefs considerably influence practice often without our realizing it. As Sotto suggests,

We tend to see our practice in terms of our past experience, that is, in terms of a theory we already have. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we tend to view everything we do in terms of an existing ‘theory’. How could we do anything, even stretch out an arm, unless we had some kind of ‘theory’, no matter how tentative or unformulated, to guide us in the back of our minds? In the case of teaching (or assessment), our theory will be made up of all our past experiences of being a learner (and of being assessed). We will then tend to view teaching (and assessment) from that frame of reference, and mostly without being clearly aware of it. In short, our theories tend to come before our practice. And not only do they help to determine our practice, they also shape how we see our practice. (1994:13, author’s emphasis)

A number of writers on assessment argue that a fundamental feature of effective assessment is to have a set of clearly articulated principles. For example, the Organisation Mondiale pour 1’Education Prescolaire (OMEP) suggest the following;

• that there should be respect for the individual child;
• that parents should be recognized as the primary educators of their own children, and as partners in the education process;
• that assessment is in the interest of the child and is effected through the child’s interests;
• that assessment forms part of the on-going teaching and learning process. (OMEP, 1993:5–6)

Conner (1995) has argued that views about assessment are influenced and informed by particular psychological theories. This is an issue that is recognized by Paul Black, the former chairman of the Task Group on Assessment and Testing (DES, 1988). In a pamphlet written with his colleague Dylan Wiliam (Black and Wiliam, 1998), they make a distinction between a ‘fixed IQ' view and an ‘untapped potential’ perspective.

…there is on the one hand the ‘fixed IQ’ view—a belief that each pupil has a fixed, inherited, intelligence, so that little can be done apart from accepting that some can learn quickly and others hardly at all. On the other hand, there is the ‘untapped potential’ view, prevalent in other cultures, which starts from the assumption that so-called ‘a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Primary Directions Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Series Editor's Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Assessment in the Primary School: A Review of Current Issues*
• 2 Baseline Assessment: A Case for Civil Disobedience?
• 3 Out of the Mire: Taming the Beast that Had Become Assessment
• 4 The Role of Target Setting in School Improvement: An Illustration in the Context of the Leys Primary School
• 5 The Role of the Lea in Supporting Assessment in the Primary School
• 6 Baseline Assessment: Policy into Practice
• 7 Using Data to Drive Up Standards: Statistics or Psychology?
• 8 Do Pupil Perception Surveys Work with Young Children?
• 9 Value-added Assessment