I am pleased
to offer this further contribution to this month’s #blogsync http://blogsync.edutronic.net/
Since the
announcement of the scrapping of levels and the changes to testing arrangements
there has been copious debate and a fair amount of head scratching as to the
future of testing and its place in the cycle of assessment.
Who do we assess for?
·
For
the children – to inform the next stages of their learning, to inform them of
their progress and what they need to do to reach the next step of their
learning journey.
·
For
the parents- to inform them of their children’s progress and how they can best
support their offspring.
·
For
ourselves- to plan the next stage of the children’s learning, to set learning
targets, to judge relative progress.
We don’t
assess for OFSTED, though OFSTED will be interrogating our data, books and the
children in regard to their attitude to learning.
What is assessment?
There’s been
much dialogue about assessment since the announcement about the scrapping of
National Curriculum levels. Much of this debate has been not so much about
assessment as about tracking. Whilst both are required, the current system of
National Curriculum levels has been that its use as a tracking tool has seemingly
replaced its purpose as an assessment tool.
To assess: to evaluate or
estimate the nature, ability, or quality something.
To track: to follow the trail or movements
of something.
Inevitably,
the way that Ofsted works has meant that schools have been forced to use their levelled
assessments to prove that they are tracking progress towards the
end-of-key-stage expectations. However, in doing so we have all but removed the
act of assessment from the processes of teaching and learning.
The problem
with the drive towards the tracking of progress is that with each large step
towards numerical data we lose the small step detail. Ultimately we lose sight
of what makes a good teacher: one
that knows the children in their class.
For assessment
to be useful and meaningful, it needs to tell children, teachers and sometimes
parents, what it is that the child can or cannot do. Levels aren’t especially
helpful, since they were designed to be broad. Accordingly, sub-levels were
created to try to fill the gap as indicators on a tracking scale. Remember
though, sublevels were only intended originally to subdivide level 2 for a more
measured ability profile at Year 2. Sublevelling higher up transpired from use
of the optional tests; readers will recall that APP deemed children as low,
secure or high, not C, B or A.
For
assessment to work well, it needs to be directly linked to the taught
curriculum. In schools, we need processes which are directly linked to the curriculum
that allow teachers to judge how well their children have learned what has been
taught. Current national tests (optional and statutory) do not fully serve this
purpose. A child in Y5 might not have covered all of the KS2 curriculum content
which could come up on a test, but a test level does not discern between that the
taught and untaught, the grasped and ungrasped.
For example a
child can achieve a Level 4 on National Curriculum tests, or even through APP
assessment, without knowing their tables up to 10×10, despite this being a
requirement of both the APP criteria and the National Curriculum attainment
target. Indeed, some children who manage well in many areas of mathematics can
continue to appear to be making progress in tracking records, despite never
confidently knowing some key aspects of the curriculum.
In the
absence of assessment, it is perfectly possible for a child to never have this
key need identified. Despite all that we know about the importance of some key
aspects of subjects, progress measurement relates to tracking first and
foremost.
A child might
well be achieving level 5, or within the expected range for his/her age, or 101
on a scaled score- but none of that information gives away the truth about
whether he/she can quickly recall 6 x 7 or to apply this knowledge further.
The issue with testing
QCA optional
tests were only ever designed as a summative measure, designed to be delivered
at the end of a school Year. There was never any intention to correlate the
standards of the 1998, 2003 and 2006 tests to each other, or to correlate the Year
3, 4 and 5 tests to each other- hence a high achieving child in Year 3 would
score an indicative level 4, and a high achieving child in Year 4 would also
score the same indicative level 4. The key term is ‘indicative’ here. The same
issue exists with level 5 in the Year 5 tests. At best the ‘indicative’ level
is a 5c (or a 4c in the Year 3 and 4 materials) but it is also worth
considering the implications for KS2 tests- until recently a child achieving
level 5 in Year 5 tests had nowhere higher to go in Year 6.
One further
issue is the sublevelling. In some tests a margin of 5 marks could turn a ‘c’
to an ‘a’, which in terms of APS progress is 4 points, theoretically in excess
of a whole Year’s progress. With an element of ‘teaching to the test’ a few
‘tricks’, such as looking for the questions where drawing a line or completing
a box is the requirement, can make the apparent difference to the result. This
is not representative of good teaching or learning.
One observed
issue has been the splitting of the indicative upper level into sublevels which
is completely inaccurate in terms of reporting. Overall testing has issues with
reliability and validity, and hence there are issues with what testing actually
means.
Why teaching to the test is
so bad
Tests are
about making a measurement: of something enormous and not clearly defined. The
term ‘domain’ describes what is available to be tested. The domain is huge;
just consider how much as a primary teacher you cover in an entire academic Year.
No test can ever truly measure the domain, as parts of the curriculum cannot be
tested in a written form. In short, tests are at best only a sample.
Teachers need
to see and use standardised tests which prompt certain responses and which are
the same for each child taking them. The QCA tests are standardised, but not in
relation to each other, and were only ever designed to be end of Year,
summative assessments with results that were only ever intended to be
indicative rather than strictly accurate.
Memorisation
of things such as times tables and verb endings, is of some value, but
memorisation of the wrong things like exam tricks and hints, is clearly not. If
the writing test is use, teaching Year 5 a unit on persuasive writing shortly
before that test will inevitably result in a skewed result. Matching teaching
to the test will inevitably result in fabricated gains. The syllabus is not the curriculum, and nor
should it be the curriculum.
It is so much
easier nowadays for teachers (and parents) to download past papers from the
internet and work on their children’s areas of weakness. However teaching which
fixates on past papers and test preparation is not teaching to the domain. It’s
teaching to the sample. The improvements it generates are not likely to be
genuine. Teaching to the test doesn’t replace teaching and learning. A good Year 6 teacher will complete old SATS
papers with a class, but not to teach test tricks, they to allow children the
experience of working to time and under pressure.
Some schools
give the same QCA test at the end of each term. This can produce feelings of
familiarity which may result in overconfidence, and subsequent underperformance,
or undermined confidence for the fear of repeated mistakes. In contrast a child
who performs well at Christmas has nowhere else to go in terms of progress for
the rest of the year.
So: What now?
Testing
clearly has a place as a measure of progress with a National standard in place.
Overtesting results in anxieties, for children and teachers, and potential
inaccuracies.
Good teachers
know their children: what they can do well, where they need support, how they
can develop in the future. Rigorous and regular formative teacher assessment,
monitored and moderated, is representative of good practice. Knowing that a
child is working at a secure level 3, rather than saying the child is there ‘because
the test says so’, is a clearer indication of a teacher with a knowledge of
their class, and a firmer basis for planning next steps in learning. With levels
going, these teachers are going to be in the best position to adjust to any
change.
