ABSTRACT
There is general consensus that school assessments impact upon the educational achievement and future success of many people across the world and are a significant feature of most modern educational settings. In this chapter we will introduce the reader to issues regarding assessment in Early Years and Primary School settings. Educational assessment can be hard to understand and in part this may be because it serves a number of different purposes. For example, assessment information may be used to give feedback on learning to enable students to get the support they need to improve. It may also be seen to provide evidence about the effectiveness of different educational methods and can act as an indicator of the accomplishments of individual learners. In modern times the assessment of attainment is used as a means to hold teachers to account so as to try to ensure that public money is being spent wisely (Mansell et al., 2009; Black and Wiliam, 2007).
