General
Principles
Assessment
is “clear seeing, rich understanding, respectful application.” 18
Assessment,
in that sense, is implicit in the whole Waldorf approach. Steiner Waldorf
schools aim to manage the education so that the development of the child takes
place holistically, in the round, and thus assessment is a means of gaining
knowledge of, insight into and understanding for the child: the more accurate
and comprehensive the observations, the richer the understanding, the better
able staff are to support and promote positive development.
Good
practice occurs when the self-reflective teacher assesses his or her own
teaching and its results for the children and shares their evaluation with
colleagues on a regular basis. Thus individual insights are tested collegially
and flow back into the classroom. Where this happens, the outcome of assessment
is that meaningful help is offered and new developmental opportunities are
created. Good assessment can lead to transformation in both teaching and
learning.
Assessment
serves two essential functions: supporting learning (assessment for learning) and providing evidence of
attainment in order to monitor the quality of education and the children’s
response (assessment of learning).
Assessment for learning identifies
areas that need attention, helps in setting appropriate tasks for the pupil,
focuses on improvement, and is most concerned with the progress of the
individual pupil with their peculiar strengths and weaknesses (i.e. it is
“formative”). Assessment of learning
is usually aimed at providing quantifiable data; it is retrospective to a
learning process, related to a pre-determined set of achievements, for example
through external tests or examinations, summing up a course of study or period
of instruction (i.e. it is summative). Both types of assessment have a place,
and either applied inappropriately, can be limiting: formative assessment if it
is overly intrusive or insufficiently personalised; summative assessment by encouraging
a “closed mindset”[i],
avoidance of activities that seem difficult or that require practice and
fixation on “token” or grade, rather than effort and progress.
Any
form of assessment depends upon the curriculum that underpins it and the
developmental Steiner Waldorf curriculum naturally takes formative assessment
as its core focus, alongside “ipsative assessment”, to which it closely relates
and which is evaluation of the progress of an individual pupil in their own
terms, against a personal starting point[ii] (for example, instead of
“I ran faster than x today”, “I ran faster than yesterday or the day before”).
Formative assessment is an expression of the essential ethos of the
Kindergarten or class teacher, who provides long-term continuity for the child’s
development. Each teacher works on the assumption that the child before them
possesses greater reserves of potential than can reveal themselves in the
present. A child’s entire biography is a path of progressive individualisation
and realisation of potential. This potential expresses itself in the way a
child works through key developmental stages, how a child learns and encounters
the difficulties which life presents. Observing this developmental path, and
responding to it, is the prime objective of ipsative and formative assessment.
Summative
assessments, which include standardised, or “normative” assessments, such as
tests for “reading age” or other attainment, act as staging posts along the
path of the development of a young person. Their role becomes more prominent as
the time for external examinations draws nearer. Ideally, of course, these
would be acknowledgement of achievement related to a wide multi-layered
curriculum and of the resulting enthusiasms, strengths and cumulative effort of
the individual young person. In that sense, assessment of learning could become
a springboard for life-long learning. Unfortunately, very few exam systems get
close to providing that and “swot up and forget afterwards” remains the
commonplace in most. Proposals, such as those for various types of “diploma”,
along with assessment made continually over time, are attempts to establish
means to identify and give credit to a wider range of attainment. In spite of
frequent calls from organisations like the Campaign for British Industry[iii] for more emphasis on
personal, creative and co-operative skills for school leavers, the trend from
the political side of education remains uneasy with concepts like ”soft
skills”, and uncomprehending of the concept of person-centred assessment.
Sweeping pronouncements about educational quality, and over-simplified truisms
appealing to competition and intellectual survival of the fittest, rule the
day. The failure of resulting policies, however, can hide itself behind
continuous & continuously more rapid reform and reorganisation.
While
excessive and excessively bureaucratic assessment stifles teacher initiative
and intuition and turns results and therefore pupils into the “fodder” of
education as a system, too little of any assessment carries the danger of
subjectivity and arbitrariness. It is the duty of every school to find ways to
acknowledge and celebrate the active work, human contribution and broad
accomplishments of its students and to set them on a path of what the
psychologist Abram Maslow called, “self-actualisation” and “self-transcendence”[iv].
This
can be represented in the following way:
- Ipsative level – biographical – development (a picture of the emerging “I” of the young person)
- Formative level – exploratory/individualising – (qualitative and related to an aesthetic feeling for the craft of learning )
- Summative level – summing up progress made over a period of time (consolidating and comparing according to criteria)
- Normative level – comparison based on typical cohort (quantative) – (measurable/objective/”physical”)
BIOGRAPHICAL - works
into & informs all assessment............>
<..........Sumativve & normative
contextualise & orientate
ipsative & formative
Record-keeping
Not
all assessment can, or should, be recorded. Record-keeping should support and
inform teaching, not divert attention from the reality of working with young
learners towards exercises in paper-work. Where records are made, they consist
of two types: on-going observations made by the teacher on a daily or weekly
basis, which include,
attendance/punctuality, completion of classroom or homework tasks given, grades
given (where appropriate), behavioural evaluation, unusual occurrences
(untypical behaviour, domestic or social crises, illness/injury) and the
child’s level of participation in lessons. Such records may be kept in a
variety of forms, electronic and otherwise, but always with due diligence, in
the recognition that this is “sensitive data”. Depending on need and the nature
of what is being recorded, what is retained may be narrative/descriptive, in
list form, or summarised as symbols with or without notes as necessary. On a
monthly or termly basis records are kept on each child’s progress in subject-specific
skills, numeracy, literacy, gross and fine motor co-ordination and social
skills.
Guidelines
for attainment levels in language, literacy and numeracy in the form of
checklists are included in the subject curricula in the following sections of
this volume and some schools have amended and developed these farther.
Records
are expected to be kept on the following in the pupil’s file:
• Early Years Foundations Stage
developmental records (profile)
·
summaries of child studies done in the
teachers’ meetings;
• school doctor’s reports;
•
learning support reports
·
results of screening, or other normative
tests;
•
record of pupils “settling-in”
periods;
• notes on disciplinary situations and
outcomes and reviews;
•
pastoral care reports;
• copies of termly, annual reports,
student profiles;
• copies of documentation from previous
schools, as relevant
It
is essential that schools have a clear policy and procedures for maintaining
records, including having the form of and access to such records.
[i]
See Dweck, C.S.Self Theories, Their Role
in motivation, Personality and Development, Philadelphia 1999 and (same
author) Mindset, Random House, 2006.
Black, P. William, D. Inside the Black
Box, Nelson, 1999 and (same authors et al) B. Assessment for Learning: Putting it into Practice, OUP, 2003
[ii]
Hughes, G. Et al, Implementing Ipsative
Assessment, Institute of Education, 2011
[iii]
See for example: http://www.cbi.org.uk/business-issues/education-and-skills/in-focus/employability/
Employability covers a broad range of
non-academic or softer skills and abilities which are of value in the
workplace. It includes the ability to work in a team; a willingness to
demonstrate initiative and original thought; self-discipline in starting and
completing tasks to deadline.
[iv] See, e.g: Kolitko-Rivera, M. Rediscovering the later version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs:
Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory, research, and unification, http://www.academia.edu/3089048/Rediscovering_the_later_version_of_Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs_Self-transcendence_and_opportunities_for_theory_research_and_unification
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