Secret Teacher - Assessment confusion.

I read this article this morning in the guardian. This teacher talks of the confusion after the changes in levels in the national curriculum. This is something that will be very relevant to me next year when I begin my PGCE. This is one of the reasons I want to understand more about assessment. This teacher says,

"I'd love to sit down and carefully write my own assessment structure from scratch. But can I do it better than somebody who's spent years studying assessment at university? No."

I think this is a big thing that this inquiry has taught me. I worried that assessment structures could restrict learning. Actually when used in the right way this structure is very beneficial for students and is put together by someone who is an expert in their field. I am not an expert on how to create a good and meaningful assessment, but I can ensure that my students get the most out of that assessment by my 'teacher construct' (Spendlove. 2009). I can use my own pedagogy to help my students attain the best grades possible.

 It seems that in the national curriculum that teachers struggle to keep up with the changes being made. In the extra-curricular performing arts exams that I have been looking at it seems that changes are not made as regularly. Material may be updated to make it more modern or interesting for students but the general structure stays constant.

Some of the teachers I interviewed as part of my inquiry said that the exam syllabuses that they teach their students are the same as those that they took themselves as young people.


http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/apr/09/secret-teacher-no-idea-mark-students-work

References

Spendlove, D (2009). Putting Assessment for Learning into Practice. London. Continuum.

Teacher, S. (2016). [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/apr/09/secret-teacher-no-idea-mark-students-work [Accessed 17 Apr. 2016].