Assessment and Recording in Art, Design and CDT

Abstract

The article that follows is an extract from a Welsh Office Research Project Schools in Action based on a questionnaire used in Cl.wyd schools and reproduced with permission.

'A number of school courses now seek to develop a wider range of knowledge, skills and attitudes than hitherto and to place more emphasis on the understanding of general principles. This, in turn, has led teachers to consider whether assessment procedures traditionally used are geared sufficiently to course objectives and to introduce new practice where discordance is evident'. 'Assessment and monitoring of progress in secondary schools, HMSO, 1983

Many schools have delegated the task of assessment revision to departments on the grounds that each discipline has unique subject-specific criteria which requires the attention of the specialist. Some 'guidelines' may have been given (E 6ff), but the heavy responsibility of producing an integrated curriculum-asssessment course structure to promote the learning capabilities of each pupil falls entirely upon the individual subject staff. The head of department has a fundamental role (A passim) as the person in charge of the quality of learning in the subject area for which responsibility is held. In fact it can be argued, with some justification, that curriculum appraisal and assessment refinement has changed the face of much departmental teaching in advance of whole school action, and that pressure to improve the institution's system has often come from 'within' subject departments and not from 'above'!