Understand the principles and requirements of assessment

Assessment Criteria:

Identify the regulations and requirements relevant to assessment in own area of practice.

Activity 1

In the space below, please identify the regulations and requirements relevant to assessment in the early years sector.

Ofsted

Ofsted stand for ‘Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Ofsted are responsible for inspecting education and care in a number of settings including: Nurseries, Schools, Children’s Centres, Higher education for 16-19 year olds, Local education authorities and Teaching training institutions. Ofsted assesses the different organisations to see if they are good enough to provide care and education to children and learners in the sector.

The main things they inspect are:

• The guidance, support and care the setting gives
• The way it delivers the course, curriculum and other activities. The amount it enables learners to be healthy and stay safe.
• Leadership management
• How well children and learners enjoy their education and how they make a positive contribution to the school. How well children and learners skills that will contribute to their future economic wellbeing.
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OFSTED inspect further education and skills so they can give information to providers, employers, learners to help further improvement. Types of information they provide are: The provider’s performance, the provider’s quality and standards and the ability and effectiveness of the training and education given and evaluation of how it meets learners’ needs. The length of inspections can vary depending on the size of the setting, how many leaner’s there are and the size of the funding contract.

Inspections tend to last between 3 and 5 days. OFSTEDs aim by doing inspections is to raise standards and improve lives. They use a framework to guide them through the inspection called ‘Common Inspection framework for Further education and skills 2012’ These are the main things inspectors look out for. The framework includes:

Overall effectiveness

How good the providers are at delivering the courses and meeting the needs of all different types of learners and other users of the setting. Quality of teaching, learning and assessment
Inspectors will see what the pupils have learnt how lessons are being delivered and quality of teaching they will observe lessons and training, look at good practice, and offer feedback to providers. Outcomes for learners

How well the learners are progressing and achieving in the setting and support they are given to help them. Effectiveness of leadership and management
How well the management of the setting is run. How they are keeping up with standards and how they are continuously trying to raise standards for the teachers and learners in the setting.

Providers have inspections between every 3 and 6 years but will have them on a more regular basis if they are deemed to ‘require improvement’ They are normally given between 12 and 18months to improve standards. If they are deemed inadequate they will normally be inspected again within 6- 8 months. Ofsted also contact providers to create evidence for use in there survey programme. These inspections are more detailed and used in Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector’s annual report to give a national picture of strengths and areas for development. OFQUAL

OFQUAL is the governing body which regulates A level’s, GCSEs and many vocational qualifications. OFQUAL stands for the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. It was started in 2007 through the Apprenticeship skills, Children and learning act. OFQUAL maintain standards and help give the public and learner’s confidence in qualifications. OFQUAL also regulate the National Curriculum Assessments in England.

OFQUAL have 5 objectives. These objectives cover qualifications standards, assessments standards, awareness of the qualifications system, confidence in the qualifications system and efficiency. OFQUAL regulate and inspect lots of different qualifications and assessments for learners of all ages including: monitoring progress for younger learners in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and qualifications taken by adults in employment and in retirement. OFQUAL will continue to examine qualifications closely to make sure standards are maintained and awarding organisations are adhering to their requirements and learners are treated fairly. OFQUAL is responsible for regulating the QCF Framework. QCF must follow OFQUALs criteria. The regulatory aims for the QCF are to: Safeguard the interests of learners

• Meet the needs of learners
• Maintain standards and comparability
• Promote public confidence
• Support equality and diversity
• Ensure value for money

All awarding bodies and QCF need to meet Ofqual’s criteria for recognition and general conditions of recognition to offer qualifications. If an awarding body has failed to meet the conditions and criteria they may be asked to take action, the organisation may be fined or even withdrawn from the awarding body. OFQUAL believe ‘Every learner deserves a system that supports the best practice in education, training, and professional development.’ The awarding body EDI (Education Development International) are in charge of looking after organisations and making sure they are meeting the rules and requirements of Ofqual and QCF. EDI work hard with many professional bodies around the world to make sure its qualifications and assessments are relevant to its sector. They quality assure work based training programmes e.g. Apprenticeships and work closely with colleges and around 1500 private training providers EDI Is accredited to award many vocational qualifications. Sector skills council: Skills for care

Sector Skills Councils is an organisation led by employers in the UK. One of the main purposes of the (SSC) is to see what skills employers need their employees to have, SSC have built a skills system that is motivated by employer demand to help them. Their main aims are to improve productivity, reduce skills shortages, improve people’s performance in business and public service, improve learning standards in apprenticeships and higher education and even aim to raise the national occupational standards. They also work toward boosting skills and productivity for everyone in their sector and take action on equal opportunities. SSC also develop National Occupational Standards (NOS) and ensure qualifications meet the employer’s needs.

Learning Outcome 2
Understand different types of assessment method

Assessment Criteria:

Compare the strengths and limitations of a range of assessment methods with reference to the needs of individual learners

Activity 2

Use the chart below to identify a range of assessment methods and the strengths and limitations of each, please ensure that you identify how these might support or disadvantage learners with individual needs. Assessment Method

• Strengths
• Limitations
• Direct Observation
• Gives opportunity to reflect on practise in action.
• Gives assessor chance to see what leaner does first hand.
• Gives more chance to be able to cross reference evidence.
• Good for leaner’s who struggle with reflective accounts.
• Leaner might be nervous of being observed and watched and may not show them in true light. -Questions may need to be asked to check understanding of why they do things. Work Products
• Work products can help motivate learner.
• Gives a chance for additional evidence to be shown by the leaner. - Good for learners who are self motivated.
• Discussion is needed to ensure they understand underpinning knowledge. -Authenticity needs to be checked, Is it learners own work?

Professional discussion

-Enables assessment of aspects which may be hard to observe if situation hasn’t arisen. -Learner may prefer working this way is they find it hard to write things down e.g. Dyslexic.

Assessor needs good questioning skills to ensure they get the most out of the discussion. -assessor needs to make sure they keep to task.

• Learner may not be prepared for the questions.
• Time consuming.
•  May be hard for someone who has English as additional language.

Written or oral questioning.

• -Encourages leaner to think more and make connections
• Can be adapted to different types of learners and units.
• -Needs clear criteria to ensure consistency.
• Can be confusing to the learner.
• Hard for learners who may be dyslexic.

Tests

• It can be a bench line for assessor to understand student’s skills and
  knowledge. -Good for comparing leaner’s data and what they may need additional support with.
• Some learners prefer tests.
• Time restraints and good planning.
• Not formative
• Some students may struggle with tests.
• Reflective accounts
• Good practise to look back on things
• Learning how to self evaluate.
• Gives meaning for knowledge.
• good for learners who are confident.
• Learners could make it up.
• Learners could put own opinion into it
• Not factual, not authentic.
• Difficult to self evaluate.
• Can be difficult for some learners to write.
• Hard for learners who may be dyslexic.
• Witness Testimonies

• Good for when situations don’t arise when assessor is present but have taken place.
• Leaner will feel supported and motivated and may boost confidence because they have dealt with a situation.
• Can be written falsely and not be authentic.
• Witness may sign without understanding of content.
• Leaner journals
• Good record keeping
• Encourages descriptive writing
• Helps with descriptive writing.
• Good to keep for higher education.
• -Contents not being kept confidential.
• Time consuming.
• Not 100% reliable.
• Not sufficient

Recognition of prior learning.

• Good to have some knowledge of the course/ subject before it starts.
• Can save time as no need to duplicate work.
• Check authenticity of evidence provided.
• Time consuming for the learner to prove and assessor to assess.

Projects

• Can be done in settings or worked based
• Can meet all learning styles and projects can be tailored to suit all.
• Good for learners who are self- motivated.
• Can be time consuming.
• May not be authentic
• Need reviewing as things change.

Case Studies

• Can motivate leaner and help to make topics more realistic.
• Builds on current knowledge and experience.
• Takes time to prepare case study.
• Clear outcomes can be difficult to define
• If done as a group individual contributions need to be assessed.
• Hard for learners who may be dyslexic.

Portfolio of evidence

• No exams at the end of unit
• Learner can be independent and self sufficient.
• Evidence can be stored in the setting
• Easy for leaner to cheat.
• E portfolio will require leaner to have a computer.
• Learners may provide too much evidence which can be time consuming to mark.

Walk and Talk

• Enables leaner to show assessor the learning environment and saves time as it doesn’t need to be written down.
• Can be hard for assessor to view the evidence and could take a long time in certain settings.
• Hard for some with English as additional language.
• Difficult for a leaner who may be deaf.ghsa

Video/ Audio

• Direct evidence of learner discussing their work.
• Simple and authentic
• Video is engaging to watch
• Videos are not allowed in some settings for safeguarding reasons.
• Can take a long time to view.
• Might be expensive.
• Some learners may be too shy to be filmed

Holistic

• Leaner can demonstrate lots of things all at once.
• More authentic
• Easy to cross reference knowledge units.
• Can confuse the learner if it’s not explained properly.