This article presents extracts from interviews with 14 teachers of English. It indicates some of the tensions which result for such teachers from having to prepare Year 9 students for the "national" tests in English toward the end of Key Stage 3. These are high-stakes tests: they supply the means to compile school "league…

The International Review of Curriculum and Assessment Frameworks in 18 countries identified trends related to participation and engagement: responsiveness, inclusion, and curricular differentiation; key skills; and creativity development and citizenship education. Common economic and social pressures are leading to some convergence among nations.…

Criticizes the attainment targets of Great Britain's National Curriculum English. Laments the division of English potentially present in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) syllabi. (MM)

Discusses the educational jargon that accompanies President Clinton's proposed national test of student performance and the jargon that describes assessment in "cutting-edge" Vermont. Asks who gets to establish national requirements; contends that national standards mean a national curriculum and the end of local school control. (PA)

The question is raised whether response-based practices in literature study ? as in other areas of aesthetic learning ? are conceptually incompatible with the practice of demonstrating the attainment of preselected outcomes. The individual reader brings unique experiences, memories, reading background and associations to the reading of…

The introduction of the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies in U.K. schools is discussed in the light of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Although the core curriculum is evidently important, it is argued that the introduction of the national strategies has created a possible over-emphasis in these subjects at the expense of…

In the absence of national standards, we have evolved a haphazard, accidental, disconnected national curriculum based on mass-market textbooks and standardized, multiple-choice tests. This article explains former Education Secretary Lamar Alexander's efforts to ameliorate this situation by promoting America 2000, establishing the National Council…

A classroom assessment of students' work against Britain's National Curriculum is presented. Some development work that focuses primarily on Teacher Assessment of Profile Component 2 is described. How this work has been tested in the classroom is explained. Some comments upon the initiative in the light of evaluation are also included. (KR)

Conducted research projects carried out from 1996 to 1998 to study the role of "Teacher Assessment" (assessments made by teachers) in measuring student achievement under the British National Curriculum. Survey responses from 678 teachers and interviews with 117 teachers and administrators indicated how teachers made their assessments of…

Discusses the current (unacknowledged) national curriculum, the myth of local control, the need for a national curriculum, major issues, and building a national curriculum. (SR)

The deficit model of assessment dominating education in postwar Britain largely disappeared in the 1970s. Inherent weaknesses of the 11-plus exam, which still survives, may explain current obsession with formative assessment. Record keeping, grading, and other difficulties with changes wrought by the 1988 Education Reform Act and the National…

Reviews the development of the competence movement in Great Britain as well as the related literature. Distinguishes four broad categories of research: (1) technical; (2) evaluative; (3) sociological; and (4) miscellaneous topics. Contains 98 references. (DDR)

The National Curriculum is perhaps the most important element of the United Kingdom's Education Reform Act of 1988. Although there are many challenges in describing and assessing the skills, knowledge, and understanding that each child is expected to develop, the national curriculum's early implementation has won wide support. (MLH)

Discusses the standards movement, several standards categories (content, performance, equal-opportunity, and world-class), state and professional standard-setting activities, ongoing controversies, teacher participation opportunities, and need for public support. The New Standards and Equity 2000 projects provide linkages to standards-based reform…

British math teachers' accounts of their classroom life show how their daily work builds classroom culture and how they have been limited by the imposition of the National Curriculum. Because of it, teachers construct a position of neutrality about student achievement despite the way they shape the learning conditions that influence it. (SK)