Part 1: ASSESSMENT 5-14

While some aspects of the 5-14 Development Programme are new for teachers, assessment itself is not. Teachers should approach this assessment initiative with confidence.

Assessment will improve the quality of learning and teaching if information gathered has a clear purpose, is collected systematically, and is used appropriately. These assessment guidelines are intended to help schools and teachers to achieve these objectives. The advice in the guidelines considers assessment as part of planning, teaching, recording, reporting and evaluating what is taught and learned in Scottish schools, and is appropriate for the needs of all children.

Education is concerned with a wide range of aspects of learning. It involves knowledge, skills and attitudes specified in curricular advice, and also values, interests and talents which are to be encouraged and fostered in young people. Assessment relates to all these aspects of education.

Effective teachers will ensure that all pupils are given tasks which are challenging but attainable, and that they are given opportunities to assimilate and apply successfully the new concepts, knowledge, skills and attitudes which they are meeting. Good assessment provides the means of judging whether pupils are able to do these things successfully. Assessment and the use to which it is put cannot be separated from teaching. In planning work a teacher should ask,

"What do I expect these pupils to gain from this work"?

The answer need not attempt to be comprehensive: pupils learn many things from any experience, and a number of these cannot be planned. In carrying out the teaching the teacher will ask,

"Is this work achieving what I had planned"?

"What else is being achieved"?

Where problems arise, assessment should help to point the way to a reconsideration of the work pupils are being asked to do, of the teaching approach, or of the pupils' ways of learning.

When the work is completed, the teacher should review it to determine whether it was capable of improvement and what remains to be done. All of these are integral parts of the teaching process. Occasionally the teacher must also reflect on, and summarise, what pupils have actually learned. This is a process additional to day-to-day teaching.

The knowledge gained from assessment builds up a picture of each pupil's attainments, interests and aptitudes, which forms the basis of reporting to parents. Other teachers and professionals may contribute to the information the teacher needs to build up a more complete picture of the pupil. Contributions and comments from parents and from the pupils themselves may also provide useful insights.

Teachers are the single most important influence in ensuring quality in education and their collaboration with parents in using information gained from assessment will prove to be a very powerful force in maximising opportunities for pupils. The use of national tests as part of that assessment will provide confirmation for both teacher and parents that the teacher's judgements about a pupil's progress and development needs in relation to the nationally agreed attainment targets in Reading, Writing and Mathematics are valid.