Summative And Formative Assessment

In a perfect world when a child enters a classroom, he or she will be able to fully understand, engage with and achieve the lesson objectives set down by the teacher, this unfortunately is not the case we are faced with. There are times when teachers have an abundance of activities and a variety of teaching methods at their disposal and yet there will always be a handful of students who have not met the objectives of that day. It is at times like this where assessment is essential in establishing an idea of pupil attainment, evaluation of teacher planning and a starting point to improve the pupil’s learning experience.

Summative and formative assessments are of course the most used forms of assessment (among others) in the classroom. Assessment for learning or formative assessment seems to the one form most successfully used in the classroom. In his book How to be a brilliant English teacher, author Trevor Wright discusses the topic briefly stating that, “we mark to celebrate pupil talents and successes on which we can build.” (Wright 2012: 95). Wright goes on to say, “But more importantly, we mark and assess in order to improve the pupils’ learning.” (Wright 2012: 95). This would suggest that assessment for learning or formative assessment is the most effective and favourable mode of evaluation. Formative assessment allows for more opportunity to evaluate pupils’ work, and give them the stepping blocks improving their attainment level.

The purpose of this essay is to show how formative assessment or assessment for learning (AFL) can be an effective way of evaluation; drawing upon examples of its effectiveness in an English classroom. I will discuss how through his method of assessment, improvements can be made in pupils attainme...

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...h an effective way of learning, much consideration would need to be put in place so that pupils don’t take the idea of peer-assessment as a means to simply talk to their friends, this practice must be taken seriously. Now that the teacher has a general idea of the different learning stages, Black and William (2005) suggests that those who are green could pair up with those who are yellow with the hope that one is able to help the other with the problem they are facing. This in a sense frees up some time for the teacher so that the pupils that are red can “meet with the teacher as a group to deal with their deeper problems.” (14). the idea of using peer and self-assessment as a form of formative assessment creates a sense of community in the classroom, ensuring that by working together improvement and progress is being made and attainment levels are being reached.