ABSTRACT
Effective moderation meetings enable teachers and their colleagues to: check their pupils have valid opportunities to show their capabilities; seek consensus about what their pupils have to do to match given criteria and achieve prescribed standards; standardise their assessments; help pupils improve their chances of success; and develop portfolios representing a range of pupils' achievements. This entails examining pupils' prejudices, assumptions, values and insights by comparing one another's perceptions of strengths and weaknesses in pupils' work. This chapter offers a protocol for moderation meetings, along with recommendations about keeping portfolios of pupils' assessed work. Moderating assessments is what markers and examiners do to standardise national test results and qualifications. Moderation meetings are a process, and portfolios are a product. Over time, moderation meetings should benefit pupils' ongoing learning while securing accurate judgements about what they achieve when those are called for.
