Assess This

By “Rebel without a coursework assessment criteria sheet”

Possibly due to the pressures from Government and OFSTED, Senior Leadership Teams the country over are going assessment mad! In some cases, they have even lost sight of the meaning of the word. At our school, we are being asked to enter progress and effort grades into a new online “markbook” twice termly for every student, as well as completing interim and yearly reports.

The twice termly “assessment” has to be done on a school computer and we are given no extra time in which to complete it. It’s not even assessment in the true sense of the word; the timing never lines up with class teachers doing subject-specific assessment tasks and we are asked to say if they are on line to meet their end of year target (which we did not set in the first place). This Nostradamus-style generation of seemingly meaningless numbers is a bit like choosing lottery numbers, albeit less rewarding.

Call me stupid, but would it not make more sense for us to enter the levels the students actually achieve, one per term? I say once per term on the (perhaps foolish) notion that we give our students time to experience the learning process and to digest information, develop understanding, grow as learners… it seems outdated to assess students at the end of the learning process.

All of this form filling and check list ticking allows Senior Leadership Teams to look great and show the Powers That Be how wonderful they are, while at the same time taking up more of what little time teachers have each week to plan and prepare lessons and mark books.

There seems to be a fad for providing so-called “evidence” that learning is taking place. But it is not true evidence they want. That is too time consuming. It involves observing whole lessons and writing up observation notes. It’s much easier to get the teachers to fill in forms and to assess the staff in a Big Brother style (we can’t get school meals without using our finger prints!!).

Come and observe my lessons if you want evidence that learning is taking place. Don’t ask me to fill in another fucking form (extra points for use of alliteration?) for you to add to your already ceiling-high pile of dust covered level arch files.

I have to go now to prepare for my teacher’s planner being checked. I suppose they want to make sure that I am not using it as toilet paper. Ooops.

If you would like to contribute to the next issue, please leave your submission under the photocopier between the hours of 3:15 and 5:15. Shhh!