Course Details

This course will provide delegates with insights into assessment and the tools to critically examine practice in their own schools. Results from schools prove that effective assessment and instruction make the greatest difference to school improvement. There is a wealth of research on which instructional strategies make the biggest difference in student achievement. It is so tempting to choose assessment methods that are “easy to grade,” but best practice tells us that we should choose those methods that best enable us to see if students have a deep understanding of the essential questions.

Meanwhile, data from assessment can be a powerful tool to raise individual student achievement, individual teacher, whole department and whole school performance. However, teachers need support to improve assessment and differentiated instructional practices based on analysis of assessment data. As the key role of a school leader is to be an instructional leader, this support must come from within.

Participants will:

• Undertake a critical analysis of current assessment practice in their own school
• Debate the strengths and weaknesses of traditional forms of assessment, examining alternatives to these
• Establish sound rationale for assessing student work
• Learn how to create differentiated assessments using increasingly higher-order thinking skills
• Undertake an in-school project to improve an area of assessment trialling new methods within an area of the school. This will be presented to other delegates and shared on-line

This course is part of a suite of Leadership courses; it may be taken as a stand-alone course or be combined with one or more from the suite to obtain either a Bronze, Silver or Gold level Leadership Award. Please see the Leadership Suite page for details.