Best Practice

Refocusing your approach to pupil assessment

With major changes afoot in both England and Wales, schools are under pressure to develop effective approaches to pupil assessment. As a new and free resource is published to help, Claire Hodgson offers some evidence-based guidance on how schools can develop their own approaches to assessment

One of the most talked about issues in classrooms across the country is assessment. Currently, in both England and Wales, assessment is a very hot topic that is under close scrutiny.

For example, a radical overhaul of the curriculum is underway in Wales following Professor Donaldson’s review, Successful Futures (Donaldson, 2015). The Welsh government has announced that the “whole approach to developing young people aged 3 to 16 will change. The new curriculum will have more emphasis on equipping young people for life”.

A key part of this change will be the role of assessment. The central focus of the future assessment arrangements is described as being to “ensure learners understand how they are performing and what they need to do next” and this will include a “renewed emphasis on assessment for learning as an essential and integral feature of learning and teaching” (Welsh government, 2017). The new curriculum is due to be rolled out in schools by September 2018.

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