The Answer

Black & Wiliam (1998) advocated that formative assessment was the answer to these problems. Their research proved that formative assessment, day-to-day ongoing assessment based on how well children fulfil learning intentions, had a more positive impact resulting in raised standards for all levels of abilities compared to summative assessment, snapshot testing which establishes what a child can do at that time (Clarke 1998). Black & Wiliams came to classify assessment as:

‘all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged.’
(Black & Wiliams 1998: 2)

By assessing formatively the end product is no longer the focus but the process where the teacher becomes more informed of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ a child has learnt to enable future learning to build on what the child needs to learn and adapts the learning to meet the child’s style of learning. Teachers now need to:

‘focus on how children are learning. They need to tune into children’s minds to connect with their thinking and feelings…The rational for formative assessment is based firmly on our growing understanding of how we learn and how good teachers teach.’
(Smith I 2004: 10)