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Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum
The Independent Review Recommends Key Stage 1 teachers should be involved in the moderation of Early Years (EYFSP) assessments.
The CIEA read the Primary Education (interim) Executive Summary and Report; from both an assessment-specific perspective and as the organisation that will accredit the forthcoming Early Years Foundation Stage Moderator Registration Scheme in 2009; with great interest.
The Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum (interim report) has recommended a move away from teaching single subjects to cross subject themes including:
- Human, social and environmental understanding
- Understanding physical health and well-being
- Understanding the arts and design
- Understanding English, communication and languages
- Mathematical understanding
- Scientific and technological understanding
This will undoubtedly involve a deeper and more flexible approach to teaching, learning and assessment in the primary sector.
The CIEA recognises that applying assessment skills across multiple subject areas to the same degree of effectiveness is no easy task and so offers members a wide range of assessment-related tools and resources that can help primary school teachers deal with this change.
The report also outlined:
Key Stage 1 teachers should be involved in the moderation of Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) assessments within schools, to increase their understanding of the EYFSP and their confidence in the judgements of reception teachers.
The report recognised that the era of 'personalised' teaching called for greater attention to 'Assessment for Learning' and that more teaching time and planning time had to be devoted if a positive difference is to be made.
Many respondents urged the Review to note what they perceived are serious constraints imposed by the Key Stage 2 tests but there was an acceptance that schools must be publicly accountable for the quality of their provision and the standards pupils achieve. Few heads and teachers rejected the principles of good assessment, including an element of testing, at particular staging points. Their concerns centred on the way in which the outcomes of tests are reported and the time many felt must be spent preparing children for the conditions of testing thus narrowing the curriculum.
The report outlined that assessment is an integral aspect of all teaching and learning and involves far more than testing. The government's recent decision to abolish Key Stage 3 tests and improve aspects of assessment in Key Stage 2 was reported as timely and Assessment for Learning (AfL) and Assessing Pupil's Progress (APP) were seen as highly promising. The aims of both AfL and APP were also outlined.
There was considerable agreement that there was a long standing and worrying tendency in primary education where discussion about the curriculum is often mired by treating summative and formative assessment as polar opposites rather than two types of assessment that should complement each other and act to benefit children's learning.
Demands for personalisation have been accompanied by a welcome increase in the time allocated to teachers for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA), however the reality in most primary schools is that of a class teacher system in which a 'generalist' teacher teachers nearly the entire curriculum to one class for one year. Despite the pressures this is seen as a considerable advantage by some respondents.