Underlying concepts

Assessment plays a key role in how teachers teach and how students learn. The best forms of assessment combine data analysis with ways of getting to know pupils and understanding their educational needs more fully: at an individual, subject, class, school and Ofsted level. Whole-school self-evaluation is now a key part of school management as a tool for looking at how different groups of pupils are performing in different subjects, measured against their age peers, personalised targets and, in national exams, across the country.

Teachers have access to an unprecedented provision of data that will help monitor and evaluate the progress of the range of pupil ability. There are different approaches to assessment that teachers need to evaluate.