14 | OPINION: BESA | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
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edtechnology.co.uk | T: @Educ_Technology
Assessment and accountability for primary schools
Caroline Wright asks: Are schools commit ed to the government’s directive? O
ne of the latest policy changes to hit schools is the government’s removal of current assessment
levels without a defi ned replacement. There are several reasons given for this. Firstly, the government wants to ‘set high expectations so that all children can reach their potential and are well prepared for secondary school’ to ensure that no child is allowed to fall behind and secondly, they want to keep parents bet er informed of their child’s progress. While these justifi cations sound plausible,
our recent ‘Assessment in Primary Schools’ research of 900 primary schools revealed that only 15% are currently planning to follow the government’s directive and abandon the traditional levels. So why aren’t teachers backing the change? In summary, 92% of respondents felt
that current levels are either defi nitely or to some degree, fi t for purpose for use by teachers, although lit le more than a third agreed that levels were suited to sharing or explaining pupil progress to parents. The survey fi ndings suggest that many
teachers fear that the government is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, replacing a system that they feel serves professionals well, in order to tackle the concerns over the way schools communicate pupil progress to parents. The alternative view is that we can do bet er, using technology both to improve the quality and real meaning of assessments and the conclusions that can be drawn from them; as well as helping teachers’ use of time. Of course some of the reluctance of
schools to replace levels would seem to indicate that schools were holding off from making any long-term decisions until the government’s primary assessment consultation fi ndings were published. Whether schools agree or not, they
must comply with certain requirements which involve publication on their website. These include the average progress made by pupils in reading, writing and mathematics, the percentage of pupils
What is clear is that national assessments
will take place at key points during a child’s primary education. Aside from this, there will be no national prescription of testing: teachers have the freedom to use their own forms of assessment. What is not clear is how these measures will be standardised in order to provide parents with a form of national grading. In our survey, 85% of surveyed schools
achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of KS2, the average score of pupils in the end of KS2 assessments and the percentage of pupils who achieve a ‘high’ score (although ‘high’ has not yet been defi ned) in all areas at the end of KS2. Since the government has now
published its long awaited response to the consultation on primary school assessment and accountability, things should be a lit le clearer, but there are still many grey areas.
stressed the importance of using a system which would provide a comparison with other schools. Looking ahead, when schools were asked how they would demonstrate pupil achievement in the future after levels had been abolished, 19% said they were planning to introduce an entirely new system, with 21% expecting to purchase their solution from a commercial assessment provider. As the sector’s trade association, working
with organisations with the highest calibre of system developers and that have spent years immersed in the education sector, we know there are already systems on the market that are designed to meet this changing assessment direction. When looking at these systems, we
recommend that you consider if suppliers are BESA members, all of which are listed on our website at
www.besa.org.uk or can be searched on the BESA app: UK Ed Suppliers. We work closely with our member organisations to ensure they receive insight from the government and keep their systems up to date with policy changes. For example, KS1 tests will be externally
Caroline Wright
set but internally marked and refl ect the new curriculum from summer 2016. While it is not clear at this stage how the scaled score will relate to the current KS1 levels, BESA member organisations will be working to ensure their assessment systems match the criteria as soon as this is clarifi ed. BESA will be sure to keep our suppliers
up to date with further changes or clarifi cations on assessment policy in turn to support your changing needs. ET
Caroline Wright is the director of BESA, the British Educational Suppliers Association, a trade association representing over 300 educational suppliers in the UK, including manufacturers and distributors of equipment, materials, books, consumables, furniture, technology, ICT hardware and digital-content related services to the education market.
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