ABSTRACT
There can be no doubt that the importance of assessment in education has grown enormously since the beginning of the 1990s. It is hard to believe that, in the 1980s, there was scarcely any assessment of science and virtually no records were kept in primary schools of children’s progress in science. There are, of course, pros and cons to this change in the role of assessment. Since the prominence of assessment is not going to diminish, however, it is important for us to consider how to make use of it to improve children’s learning and to make sure that any potential negative effects are minimised.
