ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of testing and assessment in the primary school. It discusses of the increasing trend toward bureaucratization in education, of which assessment is a central feature. The chapter focuses upon the implications of the education act for practice in primary schools—particularly in relation to proposals for assessment. The times educational supplement reported on the concerns expressed about the implications of standard assessment for bilingual children. The packs focus on assessment at the level of statements of attainment and the message is that every statement of attainment has to be assessed. TGAT had to try to show how testing could be both diagnostic and formative and at the same time make possible the benchmark assessment favoured by the New Right, to be used to compare schools and to decide funding. TGAT's job seemed not merely to produce general principles governing test construction but to allay fears of well-informed professionals and public opinion about testing.
