Transcript Assessing without Levels

Assessing Without Levels
Chris Olley
[email protected]
Assessment reform
• As part of our reforms to the national curriculum, the current
system of ‘levels’ used to report children’s attainment and progress
will be removed from September 2014 and will not be replaced.
• By removing levels we will allow teachers greater flexibility in the
way that they plan and assess pupils’ learning.
• The programmes of study within the new National Curriculum (NC)
set out expectations at the end of each key stage, and all
maintained schools will be free to develop a curriculum relevant to
their pupils that teaches this content. The curriculum must include
an assessment system which enables schools to check what pupils
have learned and whether they are on track to meet expectations
at the end of the key stage, and to report regularly to parents
National curriculum and assessment from
September 2014: information for schools
Association for Achievement and
Improvement through Assessment
• We have … opted to recommend an approach to pupil progression that
emphasises ‘high expectations for all’ – a characteristic of many highperforming jurisdictions. This conveys necessary teacher commitment to
both aspiration and inclusion, and implies the specific set of fundamental
achievements that all pupils should attain.
‘High expectations for all’
Report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review
December 2011 (Chapter 8.17)
• … all assessment and other processes should bring people back to the
content of the curriculum (and the extent to which it has been taught and
learned), instead of focusing on abstracted and arbitrary expressions of the
curriculum such as ‘levels’.
Curriculum focused assessment
Report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review
December 2011 (Chapter 8.24)
• Tim Oates, Chair of the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum
• Review http://www.aaia.org.uk/assessing-without-levels/
NAHT produces new framework on
assessment to guide school leaders
• A set of model assessment criteria based on the new national
curriculum has been produced by NAHT to help school leaders
measure and record pupil progress without using attainment levels.
• The authors of the model are clear there is no single perfect model
to assess pupils’ progress against any given curriculum. However, it
is hoped the NAHT model will provide schools with a practical
approach to assessment that is flexible and, if broadly adopted,
provide a common approach to the assessment of pupils' progress.
• In respect of the national curriculum, we believe it is valuable – to
aid communication, comparison and benchmarking – for schools to
be using consistent criteria for assessment. To this end, we call on
the NAHT to develop and promote a set of model assessment
criteria based on the new national curriculum.
• Materials are available here: NAHT assessment framework
materials.
NFER: Where have all the levels gone?
• The level-based language of the National Curriculum was not
perfect. But it did offer a certain degree of shared vocabulary and
conceptualisation to aid communication about pupil progress. At
its best, it informed assessment discussion and resulted in
high-quality formative assessment practice.
• Teachers used a common interpretation of the criteria and
exemplification of standards to benchmark their pupils’
achievements, identify areas for development and plan the next
steps. You could argue that good teachers don’t need the language
of ‘levelness’ to do this, and maybe that’s so.
• But the principles of good-practice assessment tell us that it’s
important to have some shared point of reference for assessment
standards. The alternative would risk a return to assessment
localism in its worst sense: assessment with no agreed external
reference point, leading to uncertainty about standards in pupil
achievement.
http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/99940/99940.pdf