Chapter 4 Assessment (p.67-68)

INTRODUCTION

Teachers tend to carry out two types of assessment – formal and informal. Formal assessment, using standardised tests, SATs, baseline testing etc. is usually required by school policy, the LEA or government. Informal assessment, however, tends to be for teachers’ own use, done when and how they choose, in order to check on children’s learning and progress. This is what was described in the first chapter as formative assessment. In our observations and interviews with teachers we concentrated on informal assessment.

Assessment strategies used in the classroom

Throughout the early interviews teachers referred to informal assessment that goes on all the time in their minds during teaching and is rarely if ever recorded at the time; teachers are constantly making judgments about children, their learning strategies and their knowledge and understanding. All teachers described this kind of assessment. ‘It’s the stuff I’m doing all the time – I can’t separate it,’ explained one. ‘It’s the much more personal assessment, knowing them as individuals, able to recognise from their faces whether they understand’, said another. ‘Some of it’s in my head, just going round in my head,’ reported a third.

As our visits progressed, however, teachers began to describe more specifically the assessment strategies they use in the classroom. From these discussions with teachers and our observations of their teaching, we developed a definition of ‘assessment’ as

the use of a verbal or non-verbal technique with or without the child present in order to make a judgment about the child, the child’s strategies,

Working with this definition, we were able to isolate teachers’ strategies that were distinctly ‘assessment strategies’ as opposed to ‘teaching’ or ‘giving feedback’. skills or attainment.

The assessment strategies that teachers described in their interviews were:

• using other teachers’ records;
• using written tests;
• observing;
• questioning;
• getting a child to demonstrate;
• checking;
• listening;
• eavesdropping;
• marking;
• making a mental assessment note;
• gauging the level.