Background: In 2008 primary education in England reached, historically, another important phase in its development. Government reviewed the primary curriculum and some aspects of the national system of assessment. These government reviews coincided with an independent "Primary Review" based at the University of Cambridge to which the…

Background: National curriculum assessment (NCA) in England has been in place for nearly 20 years. It has its origins in a political desire to regulate education, holding schools accountable. However, its form and nature also reflect educational and curriculum concerns and technical assessment issues. Purpose: The aim of the article is to provide…

Assessment has been at centre stage of educational reform in England and Wales in the past 15 years. This article argues that official educational assessment policy is essentially indifferent to the technical, pedagogic, and epistemological issues related to different forms of assessment. Policymakers are primarily concerned with…

This article discusses whether the occupational culture of teachers has changed as a consequence of increased managerialism, using as an exemplar some of the routine planning, assessment and reporting procedures in common use in schools in England. The article examines this claim in the light of developments after the 1988 Education Reform Act,…

Little is known about the underlying causes and developmental patterns of stability and change in early reading abilities. In a longitudinal study of twins (n=4,291 pairs), individual differences in reading achievement assessed by teachers using U.K. National Curriculum (NC) criteria showed substantial heritabilities at ages 7, 9, and 10 years…

The National curriculum assessment (NCA) in Wales has evolved from common foundations into a system that is now distinct from that in England. The influence of the political and social milieu of Wales can be seen both in the distinctive features that have been in place from the outset and in the more radical changes introduced since 2002. In this…

A recent discussion on ITEA's (International Technology Education Association's) IdeaGarden centered on the need for a "national curriculum." The idea of a national curriculum is one of great debate. Advancing Excellence in Technological Literacy (AETL) identifies criteria for student assessment, professional development, and programs that…

Background: In this article we address some of the challenges posed by the development of national assessment systems and discuss the need for high quality information on trends in attainment; support for school improvement processes and ways in which learning should be enhanced through valid assessment. Purpose: Key elements are explored,…

Notes that in England, literature (poetry, narrative, plays) is taught as part of the National Literacy Strategy and a child's knowledge of how it works may be assessed if literary texts are included in the end of Key Stage 2 reading test. Explores some of the dangers which result from viewing the minimum entitlement as the maximum being aimed at…

This study evaluated characteristics of 4 special language units serving 15 7-year-old children with specific language impairments within mainstream schools in England. The study compared curricular opportunities (e.g., individualization and social contexts) and standard assessment tasks under the National Curriculum for these children and 15…

In this article, Andrew Martin, deputy head teacher at Greenside School in Stevenage, provides an outline of the development of the P scales as an assessment tool for pupils working below Level 1 of the National Curriculum. He recounts the difficulties his school found in using P scales to track pupil progress from year to year and describes and…

In a companion paper, word recognition skills assessed by telephone using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) were found to correlate highly with National Curriculum (NC) teacher-assessed reading ability in 7-year-old twins. This study examined the genetic and environmental origins of this high correlation. TOWRE and NC scores were both…

In this article, Simon Butler advances a strong case for "comments only" marking. Good assessment, he argues, is about encouraging students to reflect on their current performance and take responsibility for their own progress. Assigning Levels to pupils' work is often justified in terms of the generation of targets which help to…

Describes a series of 1991-94 events observed in an English primary school that are typical examples of school response to an externally imposed innovation--assessment of pupils against the progressive learning scale in the national curriculum. Focused reflective practice, through reference to change events and types of teacher response, enhances…

Conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of score profiles of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in the United Kingdom to determine whether tests can replace teacher-assessed coursework in the GCSE. Results suggest that replacing school project work by tests could undo a wholesale replacement of school project work by tests.…