ABSTRACT

One of the key messages of this book is that you should be continually thinking about ways to improve your teaching in order to maximise pupils’ learning, and understanding and using effective assessment practices contributes a great deal to this. Assessment has always been considered as part of education, pupils down the ages have been tested on what they have learnt. Current practice, however, is moving away from the traditional model of assessment as a final measurement of learning, i.e summative assessment, to assessment becoming part of the learning process itself, i.e. formative assessment or assessment for learning. This chapter considers assessment for learning in some detail and how you can incorporate this into your practice; it also considers how summative assessment is carried out and what this contributes to pupils’ learning.