Why do we use assessment in primary schools?

I am a primary school teacher and syndicate leader. I have had many conversations with my colleagues about the amount of assessment we do. Sometimes we feel that we spend more time assessing children's abilities than we do teaching them new things. I thought that I would begin my blog by reflecting on the reasons we assess in primary schools in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Curriculum states that the primary purpose of assessment should be to improve learning and teaching. Schools do this in many different ways.

• One way that this can be achieved is by school wide data collection. By looking at the achievement levels of children across the school, schools can focus professional development, funding and recources on areas of need identified in the data.
• Assessment can also be used with individual children, groups and whole classess to assess the current abilities and next learning steps of the children. By assessing children teachers can plan for their next learning steps.
• Assessment can also be summative. It can be used to find out if the children have understood a concept.
• Assemssment information is also used when reporting to parents, BOT's and outside agencies.
• Standardised testing can help parents understand how their children are progressing in relation to expectations for their age.

I am sure there are other very important reasons why we use assessment. I would be interested in your thoughts on this.

The next step I believe is for children to develop their own assessment capabilities. We often hear teachers talking about creating life long learners. One way to ensure that children will become life long learners is to encourage them to imrove their ability to assess their current needs so that they can work towards improving them. This was highlighted strongly in the document Directions for Assessment in New Zealand which can be located on the TKI website. (This article was written to privide advise to the Ministry of Education.) I will be thinking more about developing childrens assessment capabilities in my next blog.