Assessment+and+Reporting+Rationale

The assessment policy at Aim High seeks to recognise the significant role that assessment plays in the process of learning itself, over and above the role it plays in measuring learning that may already have occurred. It is for this reason that Aim High seeks to encourage the use of continuous and formative assessment practices.

"Formative assessment refers to assessment that is specifically intended to generate feedback on performance to improve and accelerate learning" (Sadler, 1998). Feedback on learning that occurs in the curriculum needs to reflect the aim of informing both teaching and learning. In focusing on the positive impact that such assessment can have on student performance, benefits are gained for both teahcers and students in the work that they do. “Marking is usually conscientious but often fails to offer guidance on how work can be improved. In a significant minority of cases, marking reinforces under-achievement and under-expectation by being too generous or unfocused. Information about pupil performance received by the teacher is insufficiently used to inform subsequent work.” (OFSTED,1996 in Black and William, 2001, pg 4) Black et al. (2001) believe that the effort by teachers devoted to grading assessments is misdirected and leads students to focus unecessarily on the ranking they achieve amongst their peers rather than thinking about the process of improving learning. In addition grading is inherently focussed on achievement rather than effort and can be damaging to the self esteem of so called "low achievers". To avoid numerical grading becoming the focus of student's attention in terms of assessment, Aim High requires that grades on work returned to students be kept separate from the work returned and the comments and feedback contained. A significant part of assessment that is formative is the process of continuous assessment. This kind of assessment ensures that feedback given to students is timely and can inform their learning as it is occurring and not purely after the fact. "Teachers administer assessments in a variety of ways over time to allow them to observe multiple tasks and to collect information about what pupils know, understand, and can do" (EQ Review, 2003). Teachers at Aim High are encouraged to demonstrate continuous assessment in their ongoing pracice by creating assessment calendars that detail various ways of assessing students throughout the school year.