THE RESPONSE of the NATIONAL UNION of TEACHERS to the Dfe CONSULTATION PRIMARY ASSESSMENT

THE RESPONSE OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS TO THE DfE CONSULTATION ‘PRIMARY ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY UNDER THE NEW NATIONAL CURRICULUM’

SEPTEMBER 2013

INTRODUCTION

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) believes that this consultation is long overdue. Very little genuine progress has taken place in terms of primary assessment and accountability, despite numerous inquiries and reports on the subject, all of which have identified the detrimental effects of high stakes accountability on primary teaching and learning. The on-going review of the National Curriculum since 2011 should have been accompanied by an examination of the fundamental relationship between the curriculum and assessment, both formative and summative, as these are fundamentally linked in high quality education provision.

The Government could have done so much more to involve the profession in the consultation process. Launching the consultation at the very end of the summer term, which meant that six of the eleven week consultation period took place when most schools were closed, would have substantially limited the opportunities for schools and groups of teachers to discuss the proposals and reflect on what implications they had for their pupils. The timing of the consultation gives a strong message that Government does not value and is not interested in hearing what those with experience of teaching have to say.

The NUT disagrees with the view which underpins the proposals contained within the consultation document, that “statutory assessment in core subjects at the end of key stages is crucial for robust external accountability”. This view is informed by the experience of the NUT’s members working in schools as well as based on national and international evidence, such as[1]“across school systems, there is no measureable relationship between these various uses of assessment data for accountability purposes and the performance of school systems.” As the Government is committed to evidence-informed policy making, attached to this document is a summary of the research evidence which underpins the NUT’s policy on primary assessment and accountability.

Taken as a whole, the NUT believes that the DfE proposals will do nothing to reduce the current negative effects of accountability measures on primary education and, if anything, are likely to increase them as the new floor standards in particular will make the end of Key Stage 2 tests even more high stakes.

There are a number of proposals which influence all of those contained in the consultation document but which are not the subject of specific questions. These need to be addressed to contextualise responses to the Government’s assessment and accountability package as a whole – the new National Curriculum Attainment Targets; assessment without National Curriculum levels; and the concept of ‘secondary ready’. The freedom of academies not to teach the National Curriculum also raises questions about the consultation proposals, as do the developments in secondary school assessment and accountability.

(a)National Curriculum Attainment Targets

The new National Curriculum uses a single generic Attainment Target for every subject at every Key Stage: “By the end of each Key Stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.” The conclusion that teachers will draw will be that the only purpose of the Attainment Target is to link the relevant Programmes of Study with an associated end of Key Stage assessment, whether conducted by a teacher or subject to a statutory test. The Programmes of Study therefore act as the definition of desired subject-specific outcomes, although it is unclear whether they are sufficiently detailed to fulfil this role. This approach runs contrary to the view of the National Curriculum Expert Panel[2], which emphasised the need for precision when defining expectations of pupils’ learning. They also apply only to the end of a Key Stage, leaving schools and teachers with the job of trying to break down the content of each Programme of Study into smaller chunks for on-going assessment purposes, adding substantially to their workload.

The consultation does not consider how these new arrangements would affect assessment of foundation subjects. This is a concern because many of the relevant Programmes of Study are considerably thinner in content than those for the core subjects and would not lend themselves so easily to adaptation by schools. These will be the only areas in which schools will have the freedom to devise their own methods of assessment and progress tracking, despite the minimal guidance provided by the Programmes of Study as to what progress or a good level of achievement would be. Whilst the NUT supports greater school autonomy in assessment matters, a broad non-statutory framework which could be adapted by individual schools would be helpful in terms of consistency and reducing the workload burden on teachers.

Although we know from the consultation document that there are proposals for a new grading system for the core subjects at the end of Key Stage 2, it is unclear whether this would be based on the new Attainment Targets. If it is, it could only indicate whether or not pupils can “know, apply and understand” the Programme of Study’s content as a whole, because the Attainment Target does not reflect the different sub-sections contained within most of the Programmes of Study. The alternative would be to test each of these sub-sections separately, increasing the testing burden considerably.

The new grading system will inevitably have an impact on schools’ own assessment arrangements. Some will probably use the individual year sections provided for the core subjects, although this will not always be the case, as the National Curriculum framework says that schools have the freedom to move content to other year groups if they wish. Other schools, such as academies, do not have to teach the National Curriculum at all. With so much diversity in schools’ approaches, it is hard to see how the primary assessment and accountability proposals can be implemented in a consistent manner nationally.

(b)Assessment without Levels

Although the current system of National Curriculum levels was subverted from its original purpose by the introduction of more accountability measures, leading to the creation of sub-levels which had little to do with curriculum coverage or teaching and learning, they did at least give parents and teachers an idea of what an individual child could do and what they needed to work on next. They also enabled teachers to exercise their professional judgement to describe pupils’ progression.

Lord Bew’s report acknowledged this, despite his recommendation that the National Curriculum levels were no longer fit for purpose. The Government’s presentation of his recommendation, however, is rather disingenuous. Bew actually said that the levels should be retained until new arrangements were in place which provided a ‘vertical scale’ to measure progress, and a criterion-referenced framework that allowed teachers and parents to understand easily links between the previous National Curriculum and the new.

More recently, the National Curriculum Expert Panel said that “the focus of ‘standard attained’ should be on these specific elements (of the curriculum), rather than a generalised notion of a level….. In line with Early Years Foundation Stage reporting, this suggests more detailing profiling of students’ attainment.” This indicates that primary statutory assessment should move towards a more holistic approach, combining formative and summative assessment and taking a broader view of curriculum coverage than currently.

The Government has ignored the arguments which supported these recommendations and abrogated all responsibility for providing a framework from which schools would be able to develop their own assessment methods. In the consultation document it relies on anecdotal evidence rather than anything more robust to justify its decision: “Teachers have told us that the use of levels for assessment has become burdensome and encouraged crude ‘best fit’ judgements to differentiate pupil progress and attainment” (paragraph 3.2). It also suggests that primary schools might design different assessment systems for different subjects, adding further to the problems of clarity for parents and teacher workload.

The decision to remove levels seems even more perverse when the consultation document suggests that the new grading system would be based on ‘expected levels’ of performance. As noted above, the previous level descriptors in the Attainment Targets were not comprehensive but they did give more of an indication of what was expected of a pupil at each stage of learning than the new Programmes of Study, which describe content in a general way only. It would be possible to meet much of the content in a relatively basic way and still meet statutory requirements, but there would be no way of determining the degree to which a child had met, or even exceeded, the requirements which have been proposed.

The proposal to remove levels completely and leave it to individual primary schools to determine what assessment system to use also has worrying implications for teachers’ appraisal, career progression and performance related pay, if they are used as proxy indicators of individual teachers’ performance. Levels are also deeply embedded elsewhere in the education system, such as within the Ofsted inspection framework and initial teacher education organisation and statutory requirements. This illustrates perfectly the Government’s lack of a coherent approach to educational reform, with important aspects of teaching and assessment practice omitted until a need for accountability is identified, when this takes precedence over everything else, however disconnected and unhelpful it is.

What is needed is a system which falls somewhere between the rigidly prescribed National Curriculum levels and the totally deregulated approach proposed now. The NUT would wish to see an approach based on a developmental continuum, which was not based on age related expectations and which did not attach unnecessary labels to children but which did put the individual child and their learning needs in the centre of assessment. Using this as a framework, schools would then be free to develop their individual assessment and monitoring systems.

The NUT would suggest that different approaches need to be piloted, perhaps in the form of randomised controlled trials, to identify the benefits and risks of different approaches and their efficacy in different types of schools. The findings of this research could then be used by schools to inform their decisions about which assessment systems would be best for them.

The current system of National Curriculum levels relied on teachers having a shared understanding of subject standards and what they looked like in practice, no matter where in the country or in which type of school they taught. To support this, the QCA/QCDA produced materials which exemplified standards in different National Curriculum subjects and encouraged a range of approaches to assessment, in particular assessment for learning. The new arrangements for National Curriculum assessment will need at least as much support if it is to be implemented successfully.

(c)‘Secondary Ready’

The NUT disagrees strongly with the assertion “We believe that the single most important outcome that any primary school should strive to achieve is making sure as many of its pupils as possible are“secondary ready” by the time they leave“(paragraph 1.3) Throughout the consultation document, the Government appears to consider the concept of ‘secondary ready’ as a key driver for its proposals. There is no explanation of what this term means, other than a prescribed level of achievement in two subjects.

There is certainly no respect for primary education being an entitlement and a stage of development in its own right, rather than a means to an end. This proposal, combined with the highly prescriptive and restrictive Programmes of Study for maths and English, puts far too much emphasis on looking ahead and preparing for the next stage of education, rather than focusing on providing a high quality learning experience for all age groups.

It is likely to undermine engagement with parents, as those whose children are in the lower deciles and have not made good progress are unlikely to want to work with the school; it could also affect parent-child relationships. The measure does not provide information on what children need to do next to progress their learning or how parents and schools might work together to help a child achieve the necessary standard.

Using the Government’s own measure, 15 per cent of children will be deemed not to be ‘secondary ready’. Secondary schools will find the effects of this labelling of eleven year olds very difficult to counter, thus lowering pupils’ self-confidence and motivation at the start of their secondary school career.

It is naive of the Government to believe that the extra funding provided via the Pupil Premium, together with the raised expectations implicit in the new National Curriculum, will automatically mean that most children will leave primary school being ‘secondary ready’. The relationship between children’s ability to achieve and thrive at school is complex and involves inputs from home and school, as well as the child’s own stage of development. ‘Secondary ready’ is much more than achieving a certain percentage in tests in two subjects.

(d)Assessment in Academies

The proposed new grading system will need to be applied to all schools equally if it is to be used for the performance tables. As academies are not required to teach the National Curriculum, it is logical to assume that grading would not be derived from the Attainment Target or Programmes of Study and would have to be separate from them, whilst at the same time reflecting their content. This would also have a knock-on effect on internal assessment and increase pressure for schools’ own end of year grading at least to be aligned with the end of Key Stage grading arrangements.

The consultation document, however, implies that end of Key Stage tests and related progress measures would be linked to the Programmes of Study and Attainment Targets, thereby negating primary academies’ ‘freedom’ not to follow the prescriptive requirements for English, maths and science. It appears to be the case that the so-called ‘freedoms’ the Government is promising are artificial because of the demands of the Government’s accountability framework.

(e)Links to Secondary Assessment and Accountability

Little consideration appears to have been given to how the proposals in this consultation document would fit with the arrangements for secondary schools, which were consulted upon separately and seem to be envisaged as operating completely separately.

For example, if there is to be a progression measure between the end of Key Stage 2 and the end of Key Stage 4, as proposed in the secondary consultation and if progression is to be easily understood by teachers, pupils and their families, primary and secondary assessment would need to be harmonised in some way, yet this has not yet been addressed. Neither has the issue of re-testing on entry to Year 7, a common practice which is driven mainly because of the lack of harmonisation between primary and secondary assessment currently.

The secondary accountability consultation proposed two headline measures; ‘good’ GCSEs in English and maths and Average Points Score in eight subjects from a prescribed list, both of which would use the new GCSE eight point grading scale. It is hard to see how this would fit with the concept of ‘secondary readiness’ as being defined in terms of achievement only in the Key Stage 2 English and maths tests. How could progression be accurately captured at the end of Key Stage 4 if such a narrow measure was used at the end of Key Stage 2? Will the primary scaled score be extended into Key Stage 3 and/or 4 to enable GCSE grades to be translated into higher points on the same scale? Much more information is needed to assess how appropriate it would be to use the primary scaled scores as a baseline for secondary schools’ accountability.

Primary-secondary transfer and the information schools would need to share is referred to in passing (paragraph 1.7) but no proposals about how this would work in practice are made. There are significant issues arising from the consultation which would need to be addressed, such as how secondary schools would manage the process and use the information provided by primary schools, especially if those schools were following different curricula and using different assessment systems.

Will these principles underpin an effective curriculum and assessment system?

It is unclear which principles this question refers to, as there are two sets of principles in the consultation document, relating to “the proposals in this consultation” (paragraph 1.5) and schools’ own curriculum and assessment systems (paragraph 3.7).

In terms of those contained in 1.5, which are derived from Lord Bew’s final report, the NUT would broadly support them, as they reaffirm the importance of recording progress as well as attainment in any school accountability system and the need for a wide range of school performance information to be made available to parents. It is sensible to move away from headline threshold figures which reduce a school’s performance to a single or narrow set of performance measures. They also emphasise the importance of teacher assessment and the need for this to have equal status with external testing, as well as schools having autonomy over their methods and use of formative assessment.

It is unfortunate, therefore, that many of these principles would not be put into practice by the actual proposals made in the consultation document. In practice, there is not a clear divide, for instance, between formative assessment led by schools and summative assessment determined by Government. Schools use summative assessment in various contexts as part of their on-going monitoring of progress, whilst end of Key Stage tests have the potential to be used for formative purposes.

It should not be forgotten that 83 per cent of the respondents to Lord Bew’s call for evidence, including the NUT, said that teacher assessment should be used instead of external tests and that savings made by dismantling the testing system could instead be diverted to support moderation of teacher assessment[3]. Consideration of the areas Bew highlighted as problematic and in need of further work, such as improving moderation arrangements between and within schools in order to support and develop teacher assessment, remain unaddressed in this consultationalthough, in the case of the removal of the National Curriculum levels, they have become even more urgently in need of attention.

The principles set out in paragraph 3.7, in contrast, relate to schools’ curriculum and assessment practices rather than accountability systems reform. They appear to be reasonable, based on practical support for teaching and learning and indeed reflect existing practice in schools, such as use of assessment to inform planning for future teaching or tracking progress towards a target level of performance. They do, however, describe the functions of assessment rather than any principles which would underpin their application in schools.

One of the principles is poorly drafted. It is impossible to set out steps “so that pupils reach or exceed the end of Key Stage expectations in the new National Curriculum”: schools and individual teachers can do much to provide the structure and conditions to be able to achieve but learning is a two way process, the pupil’s contribution is vital too and ultimately it will be this which determines how well he or she achieves or not. Progress does not rest on the input from the teacher alone.

Ultimately, despite these sets of general principles and the new emphasis given to professional freedom to respond to individual pupil need via the revised National Curriculum, it will be both current and proposed accountability demands which will drive primary teaching and learning practices, not the best interests of the child.

2.What other good examples of assessment practice can we share more widely? Is there additional support we can provide for schools?