Developing a Holistic Assessment Stance in Student Teachers

Abstract

AB STRA CTOver the last 10 years far-reaching changes have been introduced to the education system of England and W ales. In particular, the curriculum in state schools has been prescribed through the introduction of a N ational Curriculum. Associated with the National Curriculum is an assessm ent system involving teachers undertaking the on-going assessm ent of pupils, as well as externally set national tests, the results of which are published. These changes have had a profound effect on the training needs of in-service teachers and on the content and structure of training courses for pre-service teachers. The assessm ent system linked to the National Curriculum is extrem ely complex. There are huge dem ands on the tim e available for pre-service teacher training. This m eans that teacher educators struggle to ® nd valid ways to train students to develop good assessm ent practices that will enhance students' teaching and the learning achieved by their pupils. This paper reports on the attem pts of one group of course tutors to develop a m eans of achieving this goal.

A case-study of the predictive validity and reliability of Key Stage 2 test results, and teacher assessments, as baseline data for target-setting and value-added at Key Stage 3

“…Certainly incidental discussions with teachers in the school at the time these assessments were completed, as indicated earlier, lend support to this idea. Underlying this may be a wider problem of a lack of understanding of assessment generally, as noted by Boxall et al (1999) andButter eld et al (1999). Could it be that teachers are creating problems for themselves by trying to use, or aggregate, assessments intended for formative purposes, for summative purposes at the end of the key stage?…”