Assessment in Practice
Making Summative Judgements
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We asked teachers in the schools involved in this project:
- how they made a summative judgement about a pupil;
- what evidence they used to do this;
- how long it took; and
- whether they experienced challenges when making their final decision.
Schools' Experiences
When making a summative judgement, all three schools reported that they used:
- their professional judgement about pupils’ overall ability;
- standardised tests and ability tests that gave teachers a peg on which they could hang levels;
- assessment activities, (including CCEA Assessment Tasks) that pupils had done throughout the school year and teachers had levelled, and their overall understanding of a level based on their school’s internal standardisation meetings.
Schools reported that it was more challenging to assess:
- a pupil who underperforms in an assessment activity or does not show consistent responses;
- a level for Reading, as they didn’t feel as well equipped to do this as they were to level Writing; and
- a borderline pupil whose work crosses levels.
Helpful Hints
- Plan for assessment opportunities.
- When planning an assessment activity, ensure that it has sufficient scope for pupils to access the level or levels that you are expecting for Communication.
- Use the Levels of Progression for Communication to set your success criteria for the planned assessment activity or CCEA Assessment Task.
- Keep a log of the CCEA Assessment Tasks or other assessment activities that you have carried out with your pupils throughout the year and your assessed outcomes.
- You may wish to use superscripts to chart progression and range within a level.
- Carry out a range of assessment activities that are meaningful and in the context of your cross-curricular planning.
- Plan to use a range of Reading activities and Writing in different genres to give breadth to your assessment of pupils.