In practical subjects such as art, music and drama, assessment strategies which reflect how learning actually takes place have been difficult to devise – but there is now a product which overcomes this problem by including audio and
video content in the records.
Assessment is a vital and time consuming element of any teacher’s job, and it plays a key role in helping pupils understand their work, improve their abilities and maintain their enthusiasm for a subject. According to the Assessment Reform Group, assessment for learning (AfL) is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use, by students and their teachers, to decide what stage of their development learners have reached, where they need to go and how best to get there.
There are numerous assessment systems on the market which offer target setting and progression planning, and these can play a useful part in helping teachers organise, track and store their records of pupils’ achievements. Systems like the Pupil Achievement Tracker (PAT) support AfL by allowing schools to analyse pupil-level performance data against the results of pupils nationally in a quantitative format. Across many areas of the curriculum, these quantitative systems are a really practical support tool and help to ensure that children’s learning requirements are monitored.
However, these systems do have their limits and are not necessarily appropriate for the creative and artistic areas of the curriculum, which combine a need for knowledge and understanding with the encouragement of self-expression. Since these systems also tend to focus on an end result, rather than providing a method for reviewing a student’s progression, they are also of more limited use when teaching pupils with special educational needs.