ABSTRACT

Thinking about assessment readers who have worked their way through this book systematically will already be familiar with a number of themes and polarities which have emerged in the first seven chapters: deep and surface learning, feeling and cognition, mechanical systems and dynamic processes, to name just a few. The likelihood, however, is that not everyone will have necessarily read the book in a systematic way, chapter by chapter, but some will have dipped into sections as the mood has taken them or as the need has arisen. Just as people do not always read books in the logical, linear sequence that one expects them to, neither do they necessarily learn in neat, predictable stages. The system of formal assessment introduced with the National Curriculum was an attempt to impose an external structure of predetermined stages on complex, dynamic, idiosyncratic learning processes and this inevitably led to difficulties. For almost 20 years the national approach to assessment has had a largely negative impact on the curriculum. The abolition of standard attainment tests at the end of Key Stage 3 therefore has to be welcomed as a positive development. That does not mean that assessment is unimportant; on the contrary it is a key element in successful teaching and learning. It is important therefore for new teachers to have a grasp of the tensions and difficulties involved in assessment.