Assessment and progression in a purpose-led curriculum

Introduction

The materials in this section were designed to support the thinking of practitioners, school leaders and educational partners in the Camau i'r Dyfodol co-construction group about what a process approach to curriculum design suggests for how we think about assessment and progression.

The section also includes materials developed from the work of these participants, which focus on supporting schools and settings to reflect on their current approaches to curriculum, progression and assessment.

Key ideas

The key ideas in this section are presented in two seminars. These videos explore what shifts in thinking about assessment and progression are needed if these are to align with a process approach.

Seminar 2: Rethinking assessment: from measuring performance to supporting learning

This seminar explores what is involved in shifting our thinking from the idea of measuring learner performance to thinking about assessment in terms of supporting and evaluating learning.

It introduces two concepts: assessment as convergent and assessment as divergent.

This seminar ends with questions for reflection or discussion about how practitioners might develop divergent assessment approaches to support learning.

Seminar 3: How do we understand progression?

This seminar explores how progression is usually understood, and how progression is more holistic and learner-centred in Curriculum for Wales. It explores the ideas of progression as emergent and dynamic, and what this means for supporting learners to progress.

It ends with questions to support reflection and discussion on how this more holistic view of progression might be evaluated and shared with learners, parents and carers, other practitioners and external partners.

A printable handout of the slides used to create this video can also be downloaded alongside a full transcript.

Exploring further

This material was developed as part of the Camau i’r Dyfodol co-construction group thinking on process-orientated curriculum design and what this means for how we approach teaching and learning. Moving away from an objectives-based approach to teaching means thinking through the difference between learning and performance, and thinking about the difference between teaching and instruction.

This resource summarises research findings and provides questions to support reflection on the difference between learning and performance in practice.

Thinking into practice

This material has been produced from the work of practitioners, leaders and educational partners to support the process of curriculum design and building a shared understanding of progression.

It can be used to support individual practitioners to consider their own curriculum design, and school leaders to consider the school’s overall design, as well as highlighting curriculum resources as reference points to support thinking.