Developing Teacher Assessment

Part I: Lighting the Fuse
Assessment to Support Learning
What is Quality Teacher Assessment?
What’s Happening in the UK?

Part II: Spreading the Word, Widening the Practice
What is Innovative about Teacher Assessment?
Moving Beyond the Classroom
Professional Learning to Support Teacher Assessment
Teachers as Self-Agents of Change

Part III: Keeping it Going
Making a Difference: Evaluating the Impact of Innovations in Assessment
Embedding and Sustaining Developments in Teacher Assessment

This book explores the processes involved in developing assessment practice. It argues that the role of teacher assessment needs to be put firmly at the forefront of the educational agenda and that assessment by teachers needs to be developed in a widespread, high quality and sustainable fashion.

The authors, all members of the influential Assessment Reform Group, argue that the target-driven approach of external testing leads to problems, including 'teaching to the test' to the detriment of the wider curriculum, and motivational problems. In this book, they tackle the differences between formative and summative assessment and ask the question: "What is quality teacher assessment?"

There is coverage of key professional learning dimensions including:

• The purposes of assessment
• The need for evidence to support innovation
• The process and steps to develop new practice
• Perceptions of what counts as quality assessment in schools

This book is essential reading for teachers, head teachers, local authority professionals, policy makers and academics.