In the midst of a wide consultation over primary assessment, this report sets out the findings of research undertaken by the NASUWT on the impact of the removal of levels from the National Curriculum in England. It also contains a summary of implications of Assessment Without Levels (AWL) for the practice of teachers and school leaders.
Background:
A revised National Curriculum for pupils aged 5-16 in England was introduced in September 2014. The revised National Curriculum is substantially different from previous versions. Most notably, while the use of programmes of study, describing what pupils should be taught, was retained in the new framework, the use of progressive level descriptions to assess pupils’ attainment was discontinued. Under the revised National Curriculum, schools are required to establish an assessment system that enables them to check what pupils have learned, whether they are on track to meet expectations at the end of the Key Stage and to report regularly to parents. Schools have considerable discretion over how they meet this requirement in practice, although they can no longer make use of levels set out in previous versions of the National Curriculum. The removal of National Curriculum levels also had significant implications for statutory end of Key Stage assessment. Previously, levels were used to assess and report pupils’ attainment in external tests and statutory teacher assessment. However, from 2015/16, the results of tests have been assessed using a system of ‘scaled scores’, while teacher assessments are made with reference to a series of ‘interim’ performance frameworks in English, mathematics and science.
No comments:
Post a Comment