, Minister for
Education:Pupil assessment’s prime purpose must be to
provide information that guides decisions about how best to
progress learning, and to provide information to the learner,
teacher and parent.
Therefore, assessment should improve learners’ learning,
teachers’ teaching and parents’ understanding.
I am pleased to report that we are successfully moving forward
with the transition from paper-based reading and numeracy tests
that learners sit each year to online, adaptive, personalised
assessments.
Starting with procedural numeracy, they will replace paper tests
completely by 2021. In the term before Christmas we began the
phasing-in of these assessments.
High quality, ongoing assessment has a crucial role in teaching,
learning and raising standards, but the current system of
paper-based testing has its limitations. The new assessments have
flexibility and adaptability built into them, so learners will be
presented with questions that match and challenge their skills
level.
This means that teachers will have much richer information and
will be able to gear lessons more specifically to help learners
improve. These assessments have been designed to support the
fundamental shift of the new curriculum - both are built on
progression.
The curriculum will offer teachers more freedom to teach in a way
that best meets the needs of each of their pupils. And the new
assessments will tell them clearly what those needs are.
We want to provide teachers with the tools for sustained
improvement in teaching and learning. And we want this to be
flexible - an approach to assessment which is formative and
provides feedback on skills and strengths, areas they need to
work on, and next steps.
This type of ongoing, quality assessment is crucial in raising
standards across the board and helping us to deliver on our
national mission.
And we have the support of the profession for this type of
assessment. The practitioners we have worked with in the
development stages saw the new assessment tools as a powerful way
to move pupils on in their learning.
We know that learners who are given high quality feedback, who
understand where they are in their learning, where they need to
go next and how they get there, are the most likely to make the
most improvement.
The system has been designed very much with the needs of schools
and teachers in mind as well. Assessments can be scheduled at
times that work best for the school. This is about putting
control in the hands of the teachers who can decide what is best
for them, and their learners. And in the numbers that work best
for the school too – pupils can be assessed individually, or in
small groups.
And we have not designed this in isolation. We have learned from
the best, with an expert group, including representation from
Denmark and the Netherlands, providing advice throughout.
This has enabled us to lead the way. Adaptive assessments for
procedural numeracy and reading have been developed elsewhere,
but Wales is the first nation to develop online assessment for
numerical reasoning skills.
Members will know that since entering government I have sought to
tackle the issue of access to IT and broadband.
We have provided the WLGA with £1.7 million to distribute to
schools who are most in need of IT upgrades. We will be providing
ongoing help as these assessments are rolled out; support
materials will be available online, we will be holding webinars
to ensure that schools understand the process and how they can
use the reports.
Personalised assessments provide a tailored, interactive
experience to engage learners and assess the level of their
skills and will offer immediate, high quality feedback,
supporting both teachers and pupils with their development.
Llywydd, in conclusion, this is an exciting and necessary
development for raising standards and reducing the attainment
gap.
