Assessment

Introduction

Assessment is one of the things that student teachers find hardest to grapple with. It comes well behind the fear of facing a bunch of rowdy kids and some way behind understanding how to plan a lesson. What they eventually come to understand is that knowing what the pupils can already do or are finding difficult is essential to planning and that a well planned scheme of work is half the battle in creating a well motivated class. This is because at the heart of good teaching lies knowing your pupils well and listening to what they have to tell us. There is no real substitute for the relationship that this creates but there are certain procedures that student teachers might adopt to help them on their way.

To signal the importance we place on assessment, and to introduce them to some of the attendant procedures of assessment for learning, student teachers can be asked to create an assessment portfolio which is designed to reflect good practice in assessment and their own developing practice in this area. We suggest it might include the observations of lessons or lesson plans including:

• self assessment
• peer marking
• use of sharing criteria with pupils
• oral feedback to pupils during the course of a lesson

We ask also that it include:

• photocopied samples of assessed work (anonymised)
• comment only marking that gives productive feedback on what pupils might do to improve, particularly at the drafting stage
• examples of record keeping that focus on pupil targets
• examples of the school's English department's assessment policy

By the end of the course we hope that student teachers will be familiar with the following:

• using success criteria to inform planning
• using examination assessment objectives/criteria to inform planning
• using prior attainment to inform planning
• using evidence of achievement against success criteria to inform planning
• sharing the above with the pupils

Professional Standards for QTS
These web pages relate to the following Standards:
Q1 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q19 Q26a Q26b Q27 Q28

Links with other areas of the ITE English website
Reading for Discussion: Assessment