ABSTRACT
Assessment has a two-fold purpose. It tells you (a) what individual (and groups of) pupils have learnt, but it also tells you about (b) yourself as a teacher. One way in which your newly qualified teacher (NQT) year is different from your initial teacher education (ITE) is that, as a full-time teacher, you know the pupils in the classes you teach better than you did during the short periods you were on school experience. This helps you to focus on the learning of individual pupils as well as on the teaching of whole classes. This change of focus presents you with some very important questions:
• How do you know when learning has taken place? • How can you make sure you build on this learning? • How can you let your pupils, and others, know about learning progress? • Does learning automatically follow from teaching?
