As a contributory author to the Cambridge Primary Review (CPR) and with an election in the offing I have explored whether it is possible politically as well as educationally to combine the CPR assessment principles with the pronouncements made by Conservative politicians. Surprisingly I believe it is.
Below I suggest how primary school accountability might be rendered at three levels in a way which provide an appropriate and generally acceptable balance between professional autonomy, adherence to CPR principles and public accountability. (Instead of employing Rose's "area of understanding" or the CPR's "domain" when describing the components of the primary curriculum I use the more neutral term "curricular area").
Third Level : system-wide accountability
Annual or biannual national surveys of children's performance in, as far as possible, all curricular areas at age 11 – based on sampling of both assessment items and pupils – building on the APU model
Second Level: school-wide accountability
School inspections refocussed on the quality of provision (especially teaching, curriculum, assessment practice and leadership) and issuing publicly available and accessible reports – ideally at three year intervals (ie twice in a child's primary career). These would provide parents and others with periodical appraisals of the quality of education in individual primary schools
First Level: accountability at individual pupil level
(All the following assessments would be reported to parents, children and others including teachers who ‘need to know'. They would not be collated as a "measure" of school performance nor would they be issued as performance tables thereby hopefully eliminating teaching to the test and a narrowing of the school curriculum)
At the end of Year 1: (a) teachers' assessments of children's progress in relation to an agreed but limited number of assessment criteria in each area of learning of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum plus an overall appraisal of children's attitude to learning and of their ability to learn
(b) assessment through informally administered assessment instruments (tests? tasks?) related to children's progress in reading, writing and number
At the end of years 2,3 and 4 : teachers' assessments of children's progress in relation to an agreed but limited number of assessment criteria in each curricular area plus an overall appraisal of children's attitude to learning and of their ability to learn
At the end of year 5 (a) teachers' assessments of children's progress in relation to an agreed but limited number of assessment criteria in each curricular area plus an overall appraisal of children's attitude to learning and of their ability to learn
(b) assessment through formally administered national tests or other assessment instruments related to children's progress in mathematics, language, oracy and literacy
At the end of year 6: (a) summary of teachers' assessments of children's progress in relation to agreed summative assessment criteria in each curricular area plus an overall appraisal of children's attitude and of their ability to learn.
Over time once teacher assessment has established its professional, political and public credibility it might be possible to dispense with the use of a national assessment instrument at the end of year 1 and with the use of national tests at the end of year 5
Does this manage, I wonder, "to square the circle" of national assessment ? Or am I being both educationally and politically naïve?
