BASELINE assessment on entry to primary school slipped quietly into the background this week and with it the concept of added value as the Scottish Executive and Learning and Teaching Scotland launched a multimedia resource pack to help teachers and pre-school staff set common standards.
The pack aims to improve the consistency and reliability of assessment based on observing children - a step back from trends in the mid to late 1990s towards objective assessment of pupils, even as young as four and a half.
Heavy central direction on assessment linked to classroom learning between the ages of three and eight clashes with the belief of local authorities that external tests carry more weight. Almost one in three authorities, for example, will shortly be involved in the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools( PIPS) initiative that assesses children within days of entry and at regular intervals as they progress through the school.
Ministers’ support for the alternative approach, far removed from statutory baseline assessment schemes south of the border, sets Scotland on a different early years route and dovetails with recent announcements about “sharing the standard” on transition between primary and secondary.
The Executive believes that harmonisation may remove the need for widely used standardised tests. Carolyn Hutchinson, head of the qualifications, assessment and curriculum division within the Executive, told a national early years conference at Heriot-Watt University that a pilot baseline assessment project had revealed major concerns among staff about labelling children at an early age.
The pilot involved 1,000 pre-school and primary children in 71 schools and centres. Staff who took part also felt assessment should be a learning-focused activity and cover the curriculum, without a narrow focus.
These points, Mrs Hutchinson said, helped steer the Executive towards its revised approach. Teachers and pre-school staff liked the avoidance of tests and the focus on professional judgment.
Mrs Hutchinson made no reference to PIPS but it was clear it and other methods have fallen out of favour at the centre. Mike Cowie of Aberdeen University’s education faculty, an advocate of the system, remains unmoved by criticism. “There is no system of classification at all under PIPS and this is a red herring,” Dr Cowie said.
“What we are looking for is a review of progress and encouraging every child to do as best as they can. The PIPS approach can complement the Executive’s approach because it can provide a more rigorous analysis.”
In her address to the early years conference, Mrs Hutchinson sought to distinguish between assessment and measurement, putting the emphasis on assessment for learning.
