Section 4

ASSESSMENT AND RECORDING

The comments which follow are concerned specifically with assessment of Latin in S1 and S2. General guidance for policy and practice in assessment can be found in the guidelines Assessment 5-14 (SOED 1991).


Aims of assessment


In the context of Latin learning and teaching, the aims of assessment are to:

monitor pupil success and progress;

report to pupils, parents and colleagues;

evaluate the success of teaching and learning.

Teachers should adopt a range of assessment procedures to suit their teaching strategies and the needs of their pupils as they learn. The attainment targets should act as a guide to pupil progress, but not every target of every strand will necessarily be formally assessed.


Assessing pupils' progress


Pupil progress can be assessed in a number of ways:

Monitoring of day-to-day activities

Teachers do this as an integral part of effective teaching. It pinpoints strengths and weaknesses and allows the next stage of learning to be identified. This will involve providing challenging and attainable targets and, through this, improving motivation. Meaningful learning will be encouraged when there is constant monitoring of progress.

Regular appraisal of progress

In the case of Latin it is inevitable that pupils' ability to retain vocabulary or grammatical features will suffer if they are not frequently involved with the language and if their knowledge is not regularly reinforced. Assessment should not be time consuming or burdensome. A regular vocabulary check, whether oral or written, may take only a few minutes; however, it will be valuable to pupils in helping them to retain information. It will also be valuable to teachers in helping them to identify particular areas in need of development. Similarly, making a regular oral or written check on points of grammar or information about the Roman World helps to reinforce new material or revise previous information.



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© The Scottish Office Education Department, August1992