Scheme of Work and Assessment

1774 Words4 Pages

In a recent white paper, ‘The importance of Teaching,’ the Government sets out the agenda for educational reforms in England. The paper ignores a fundamental, powerful tool that is available to but is still used by teachers and that is Assessment for Learning. Not only does the report fails to acknowledge this effective teaching tool, it also states that teachers no longer need to develop a written lesson plan (Great Britian Department of Education 2010). This concern was also echoed by Lucey (Lucey 2011) in her article on the importance of AfL in schools and how the Government have failed to recognise the potential it has on pupil’s learning. However, the Government states that it will allow the practitioner to decide how learning will be assessed depending on their pupil’s particular needs. The aim of this to essay is to look at a Year 7 Mathematical Scheme of work to show that active approach to AfL has benefits for both the teacher and the pupil they teach. This article will concentrate on AfL and not summative assessment, which is a grading attributed pupils at the end of module or end of year examination that has benefit for the pupils but not the pupils on-going learning.

In their article ‘Inside the Black Box,’ Black and Wiliam (1998) set out to answer three questions related to raising standards though the use of formative assessment and their conclusion was that the evidence provided in the literature supported the premise that formative assessment does raise standards. Readers of Black and William’s article have agreed that there are benefits of enhanced teaching practice and that the ideas within the article establishes sound assessment for learning strategies that strengthen learning for pupils or group of pupils ...

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