A critical analysis of strategies that promote inclusive practice in assessment

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0801601                                                                                                                                                    EY 506

This essay will provide a critical analysis of strategies that promote inclusive practice in assessment. In the past, assessment was looked at in a very different light as opposed to present. In 1878 City and Guilds was introduced which was a level down from university. The Educational Reform Act 1988 was an influential piece of legislation. The act introduced the National Curriculum and which has three core and seven foundation subjects. It also introduced SATS which are compulsory National tests and children sat these exams at seven, eleven and fourteen. The results from the assessments were then published annually in the league tables and from using this data, schools can be directly compared. In 1895 the government were discussing problems with final year subjects. In the early 1900’s the only exams were in university and in the 1930’s there were issues about marking and discrepancy meant there was a disagreement between teachers. In 1945 the 11+ was introduced and people who passed this exam went to a school were money and resources were used for them. In the 1950’s A levels were run by university boards for example Oxford and in the 1960’s things started to change in terms of assessment, that’s when the notion was realised that different teachers mark in different ways.  (Class notes, 29.09.09) Excellence and Enjoyment (DfES, 2003) was a strategy that allowed teachers to do assessment and allowed them more recognition of their own professionalism.

Assessment is the process of finding out about what children can do and where there may be difficulties. At its best it provides clear information for the planning of teaching and learning, or at least for further targeted assessment. (Briggs et el, 2003)

The main principle of assessment is to allow professionals the opportunity to monitor a child’s progress; by assessing a child they will be able to critically analyse a child’s progress, enabling them to plan the next stages in teaching and learning (QCA, 2004). This is beneficial because without the prospect of assessment, a professional will not be able to see factual progress the child has made and at what stage they are in their holistic development.  Also, without assessment it will not be so accommodating in the child’s next stage of transition.

According to Briggs et el (2003) assessment, like any other area, has its own vocabulary and it’s important that professionals have a working knowledge and understanding of the terms used and how they are applied. This will be addressed and demonstrated throughout the essay. One term not in the terminology list is achievement, because this is an important area to consider within the assessment process and needs consideration in greater in greater depth. By planning a lesson the teacher is deciding what they want the children to learn Briggs et al (2003) suggest that they are making a judgement about what is valued in terms of knowledge and skills. Most of these are set out through the National Curriculum and strategies, which detail the expectations for children across the primary age range.

Assessment must be planned at the same time as teaching and learning. For example, there is a cycle of planning teaching and assessing and this cycle generally begins with assessing the learners’ needs, this can enable the practitioner to plan the next stages in teaching and learning.

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According to Wragg (2001) the purpose of assessment are knowledge of results or feedback, support and encouragement, motivation, diagnosis, selection and measurement and comparison.

The Task Group report on assessment and testing for the National Curriculum was published in 1988. A central feature of the report is that assessment should be seen as formative, which means that it should provide information to the teacher which will influence the organization and structure for future learning both for the individual child and the class as a whole (Connor, 1991). Although TGAT (1998) recognized that a major purpose of assessment was formative, ...

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