Testing is not the only way to measure children’s progress

Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

All of us have more than a passing interest in assessment but the first thing we have to consider is why are we testing children so much? 

As outlined by Alice Bradbury in her report for More Than A Score:

Before the age of 11 children have been subjected to

• Baseline assessment 

• Phonics screening

• Key Stage 1 SATs 

• Multiplication tables check

• Grammar, punctuation and spelling 

• Reading, arithmetic and mathematical reasoning

• and sadly, in some cases, the 11 plus.

There have often been reports from secondary schools suggesting that SATs testing in primary schools is inaccurate and unhelpful in creating a profile for an individual child which they are then required to use to project a child's outcomes at 16.

A test is simply a snapshot at a particular moment in a child's life. This will only tell you about one  small aspect of a child's development and growth and can't show how far knowledge and skill are embedded in the individual which is presumably why we're doing it. 

I would say testing has a place in the classroom. It helps to inform the teacher but this is simply one, quite transitory, aspect of the whole child.

Testing should not be the only way of measuring progress made by children in primary schools. For a more complete assessment of how children grow and develop we must include the views of those involved: the children, their parents and their teachers.

Here are some examples of children's art examined by their peers and their families, these are a more valuable and rewarding test than any SATs paper can be. 

The use of external testing fails to recognise that progress in young children’s learning can't always be set out in steps denoting a smooth incremental progression. 

One step may often follow another, but sometimes we need to go back over things, to circle round and approach it from a different angle. We should also recognise that 

different experiences may well provoke other levels of understanding or reinforce earlier understanding. 

The thread of ideas must be drawn out of experience as a single thread is drawn out of a multi hued and textured cloth. Assessment needs to acknowledge the complexity of this cloth and the fact that young children are building up a network of understanding which may not be immediately observable or evidenced and this is best done by teachers and parents alongside the self assessments of the children themselves. We must always remind ourselves that children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled and that entirely accurate assessment is probably impossible. In understanding all this we need to be appropriately modest and respectful of the human lives we are presuming to assess.

The possession of knowledge and skill is only a beginning, it is what a child does with that knowledge and skill that matters more. Progress must be related to the child as a whole and our consideration of progress must include how the child functions in life. It is not enough to show potential for learning at the age of four and to pass a test at the age of eleven. 

We must learn to assess what we value and not simply value what is easy to assess.