Category Archives: Assessment

Right folks. I’m sure we’re all agreed that the sooner we spot student weaknesses, the better it is. So we’ve decided to move everything forward this year. Data entry, reports, the lot! Everything? Yes that’s right! Remember how everyone always … Continue reading →

David Didau’s post a while back, “What if assessment for learning might be wrong?” was a challenge to what is often seen as a “sacred cow” in teaching. In my view, teaching has far too many of these sacred cows and … Continue reading →

If your school is in the PiXl group, you may well be encouraged to make use of personal learning checklists, or PLCs, to use one of many PiXL acronyms. On the face of it, these seem like a good idea. What … Continue reading →

I have blogged about this in the past, but I make no apology for doing so again. I am inspired to do so by having attended the Learning First conference in Sheffield, where there were calls for an end to … Continue reading →

Whenever people argue against grammar teaching it usually takes the form of the argument below. The problem is that the “I became rich and famous without knowing X” argument can be used for almost any subject or piece of factual knowledge … Continue reading →

Most secondary school teachers I know came to loathe the GCSE controlled assessments which were introduced under the previous government. They were brought in with the best intentions. Unlike coursework completed at home, controlled assessment write up would have to … Continue reading →

The TES reports that more schools are expressing an interest in moving away from so called success criteria to comparative judgements. https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/teachers-flock-voodoo-solution-excessive-marking-workload I have blogged about this in a previous post and although it is no panacea, I am sure … Continue reading →

  I have publicised this link before, but I am only now beginning to realise that the approaches to assessment outlined here by Daisy Christodoulou are a solution, not only for how to assess pupil performance, but also for reducing teacher … Continue reading →