1. OPENING UP ASSESSMENT Learning Together Resource
Learning together resources use carefully
selected videos of excellent practice
and information from
The Journey to Excellence website.
Whilst you watch examples of
practitioners and learners, and listen
to the perspective of researchers, you will
be encouraged to carry out activities and
put your learning into your practice.
March 2012
Version 1.1

2. Learning Together Resource
OPENING UP ASSESSMENT
Learning Together Resource
The resource is presented using a slideshow format.
Slides can be accessed in succession, using arrow keys, through hypertext links or navigation buttons Hypertext links are live in slideshow format only.
Glow*, NAR* and SQA* icons link to additional
assessment resources and discussion forums.
Glow Assessment group - [National site, National Group – assessment]
NAR –
SQA –
Navigation buttons – the home icon will return you to the menu slide for the ‘when we assess area’.
Hypertext links – These work when the slides are being viewed in a slideshow. They do not work when in normal view.

3. Learning Together Resource
OPENING UP ASSESSMENT
Learning Together Resource
Who is this for?
The pack has relevance for a wide range of partners
and professionals working in all sectors and contexts
who contribute to the implementation of Curriculum
for Excellence.
It is designed to help you reflect on the implications
of assessment for your practice.
Glow:
NAR:
SQA:
An asterix* highlights there is additional information
in the notes pages of a particular slide.

4. Learning Together Resource
OPENING UP ASSESSMENT
Learning Together Resource
The resource is organised in 4 sections.
Each can be accessed individually or in succession.
Additional resources can be found after the activities section.

5. ensure appropriate support promote learner engagement
As you work through the resource be mindful that the principles of assessment are to……
support learning
ensure appropriate support
promote learner engagement
Introduction

6. Introduction www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
As you work through the resource be mindful that effective assessment involves a wider range of evidence.
In response to their learning experiences valid, reliable and proportionate
assessment evidence may come from things that learners………
make
say / communicate
say
write do
write do
Introduction

7. Videos www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
The following two slides link to a sample of clips showing effective practice in assessment. These
can be viewed online or downloaded. They can be accessed by clicking the school name on the
slide. Alternatively, enter the school name into the video search engine on The Journey to
Excellence online resource. The clips are also available at iTunes U .
Minishant Primary School
Involving learners in creating their
own success criteria.
Auchinleck Academy
Transitions – sharing standards
in mathematics.
Torbain Primary
Assessment in action.
Grange Academy
Moderation to improve learning.
Dundonald Primary
Personal planning in literacy, numeracy,
health and wellbeing.
Mosshead Primary School
Mosshead learning Journeys.
Videos

8. Raploch Primary School
VIDEOS
Balwearie High School
Formative assessment as an integral part of
Learning at Balwearie.
Auchinleck Academy
Learner engagement through
interdisciplinary learning.
Grange Academy
Numeracy across the curriculum.
St Modan’s
Raising attainment through young people knowing
their strengths and next steps as learners.
Raploch Primary School
Assessment at Raploch Primary School.
Videos

9. Improvement Guides – What is excellence in assessment?
The following improvement guides provide information on excellence in assessment. They are part of a series
available at the Journey to Excellence online resource. They illustrate the difference between good practice and
excellent practice in assessment. They can be applied in any learning context.
Using assessment to support learning
Assessing progress and achievement
Monitoring, recording and tracking success
Recognising achievement
Profiling success in achieving outcomes of learning
Reporting on success in achieving outcomes
Ensuring quality and confidence in assessment
Improvement guides

10. Activities Activity 1 Activity 2.1 Activity 2.2 Activity 2.3
This activity helps you to compare your own practice in assessment with
features of excellence detailed in the improvement guides.
Activity 2.1
This activity is the first of three activities exploring how you might report
to parents on a child’s or young person’s progress through a level using
the terms developing, consolidating and secure.
Activity 2.2
This activity is the second of three looking at a child’s progress through
a level. It asks you to explore your own understanding of the term ‘breadth’
‘challenge’ and ‘application’ before listening to a clip which explores the terms
in depth.
Activity 2.3
This is the third activity linked to assessing progress through a level. Its
purpose is to build on your prior knowledge and explore your own practice
in knowing when a child is ‘secure’ at a level.
Activity 3
This activity highlights excellent practice by practitioners
through the involvement of children and young people in understanding
themselves as learners. It also looks at pathways through Curriculum
for Excellence levels for children and young people who need additional
support.

11. Activities Activity 4 Activity 5
Effective assessment is reliable, valid and proportionate. It takes account
of a child’s or young person’s learning both in and outwith the classroom.
This activity helps you to explore when to assess a child or young person
to provide a holistic view of progress.
Activity 5
Curriculum for Excellence aims to develop a child’s or young person’s
skills for learning, work and life. This activity helps explore your thinking
around assessment across the four contexts for learning. It highlights two
schools whose approaches ensure children and young people know
their strengths and next steps as learners in a range of settings. Both
schools use this information to raise attainment and achievement of their
children and young people.
Activity 6 Effective assessment approaches are inclusive and accessible
for all children and young people. This activity encourages you to consider
the five entitlements of Curriculum for Excellence and fair and
inclusive assessment approaches.
Activity 7 These two slides are included for self-directed learning through
additional resources and activities available from Education Scotland
interactive assessment site, National Assessment Resource (NAR)
and SQA. Topics include Recognising Achievement, Profiling and
Reporting Progress and Sharing standards and expectations.

12. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Choose one of the assessment improvement guides. How well does your practice in assessment match the features of excellence.
List your strengths and areas for development below
Strengths
Areas for Development
Discuss with a colleague
Approaches to planning must be coherent around learning, teaching and assessment. Given that, what are the implications for your current learning, teaching and assessment policies and practices?
Do your assessment processes take account of the capacities, attributes and capabilities of
Curriculum for Excellence?
Do you apply the principles of curriculum design to assessment approaches?
Do you come together with other staff and partners to plan learning, teaching and
assessment in a coherent way?
How effective is your approach to monitoring and tracking the quality of learning and
achievement across IDL, subject learning, ethos and life of the school, and opportunities for
personal achievement?
Activities
Activity

13. Developing* Secure* Consolidating* Activity 2.1
Reporting progress through a level
Teachers should report to parents on their child’s achievement in terms of levels as well
as using brief qualitative comments to reflect ‘how much’ and ‘how well’ their child has
achieved. Assessment approaches should help learners to show their progress through
the levels and enable them to demonstrate their achievements in a range of ways which
are appropriate to learning.
Developing*
Secure*
Consolidating*
NB: These terms are not meant to be applied to individual experiences and outcomes as this may lead to fragmented learning.
Developing: has started to engage in the work of the new level; and is beginning to make progress in an increasing number of outcomes across the breadth of learning described in the experiences and outcomes for the level
Consolidating: has achieved a breadth of learning across many of the experiences and outcomes for the level; can apply what he/she has learned in familiar situations; and is beginning to undertake more challenging learning and to apply learning in unfamiliar contexts
Secure: has achieved a breadth of learning across almost all of the experiences and outcomes for the level, including any significant aspects of the curriculum area; has responded consistently well to the level of challenge set out in these experiences and outcomes; has moved forward to more challenging learning in some aspects; and has applied what he/she has learned in new and unfamiliar situations.
The diagram illustrates the interconnected nature of these categories. It emphasises that progression in learning is usually not linear and that children and young people will progress in different ways. Care should be taken in using these categories for reporting. It will be important to use these to help parents and others understand individual learner’s progress. Brief qualitative statements based on one or more of the bullets within each of the categories would be appropriate. Teachers could adapt these and could exemplify the context of learning, for example, applying money management skills in budgeting for a holiday.
How effective is the range of assessment evidence you collect in demonstrating what learners know and
understand and can do across all aspects of achievement?
Does your evidence include assessment in a range of contexts and settings?
Activities
Activity

14. NB: This video is hosted on YouTube.
Activity 2.2
To demonstrate that a child or young person’s progress is secure and that they have achieved a level,
they will need opportunities to show that they: have achieved a breadth of learning, they can respond to
the level of challenge, and can apply what they have learned in new and unfamiliar situations.
What does assessing ‘breadth’* of learning, ‘challenge’* in learning and ‘application’* of learning mean to
you? Consider each word below, making a mind map showing your knowledge of these terms.
NB: This video is hosted on YouTube.
Challenge
Breadth
Application
Hear Frank Crawford discuss
breadth,
challenge and application.
Video link :
Progress through a level
Breadth: Increasing numbers of experiences and outcomes, increasingly detailed descriptions and explanations. Literacy: Increasing ranges of texts. Numeracy: Increasing range of skills and concepts. Expressive Arts: Increasing skill and confidence , presentation and performances. Sciences Wider range of scientific language, formulae and equations.
Challenge: developing higher order thinking skills, increasing independence. Literacy: increasing complexity of texts: length, structure, vocabulary, ideas, concepts. Numeracy: solving problems in unfamiliar contexts, responding accurately and confidently to more complex contexts. Expressive Arts: increasingly complex pieces of work, evaluating own and others’ work.
The sciences: increasingly complex scientific concepts, range of variables, complex information.
There are of course 2 aspects of challenge, one relates to the challenges defined within some of the Es and Os, so many will include higher order thinking skills such as analysis and evaluation.
The other aspect of challenge can be individual to the learner. For example, through personalisation and choice, a learner might study a particular aspect in greater depth, perhaps through a project or assignment they have been involved in designing.
Here the descriptions of progress in relation to challenge relate to, for example:
Independence
Complexity of contexts, texts, information, concepts.
Application : applying skills and knowledge to different situations, finding, selecting, sorting, linking information from a variety of sources. Creating texts to persuade, argue, explore ideas. Applying and using skills and knowledge creatively. Recording and presenting thinking in different ways. Presenting, analysing and interpreting evidence to draw conclusions.
Watch the video clip. Highlight and add comments to your mindmap. Discuss your mindmap with a colleague.
Activities
Activity

15. Acitivity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Activity 2.3
Read the statement below.
Assessing progress and achievement in learning
….Assessing progress* across the breadth of learning, in challenging aspects and when applying learning in different and unfamiliar contexts, helps teachers to plan, track progress and summarise achievement in a rounded way and better prepare children and young people for the next stage in learning.
In considering this statement, what are the implications for your assessment practice in your context at present? What 3 changes in practice could you make? 1) 2) 3)
Exploring your thinking ... Breadth, Challenge and Application Assessment approaches should help learners to show their progress through the levels and enable them to demonstrate their achievements in a range of ways which are appropriate to learning. For learners to demonstrate that their progress is secure and that they have achieved a level, they will need opportunities to show that they:
have achieved a breadth of learning across the experiences and outcomes for an aspect of the curriculum
can respond to the level of challenge set out in the experiences and outcomes and are moving forward to more challenging learning in some aspects
can apply what they have learned in new and unfamiliar situations
Teachers can use these three aspects to decide when a learner has met agreed expectations and achieved a level, either in a part of a curriculum area or in a whole curriculum area.
The three dimensions are application, breadth and challenge (ABC). The application and challenge are related in that we can consider them to include consolidation and higher order thinking skills. Being secure at a level means that you are successful in all three dimensions.
Activities
Acitivity

16. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
St Luke’s High School
Minishant Primary School
Watch the videos from St Luke’s High School and Minishant Primary School.
How effectively do you make clear to learners what they are learning, what success looks like and what is expected of them? Do you provide sufficiently high-quality feedback to learners about how much and how well they have learned? Are learners involved in this process?
What strategies do you have to ensure consistent application of standards?
How do you use the flexibility of Curriculum for Excellence to provide opportunities and pathways for all learners including those who need additional support and those who require more choices and more chances to progress?
It is important that more able children and those who make faster progress do not ‘race’ through the levels. How can you plan greater variety of contexts, depth and greater challenge into the experiences and outcomes for these children and young people?
Assessment is an integral part of learning and teaching. It helps to provide a picture of a child's or young person's progress and achievements and to identify next steps in learning. Assessment approaches need to promote learner engagement and ensure appropriate support so that all learners can achieve their aspirational goals and maximise their potential.
St Luke’s clip
Minishant clip
Activities
Activity

17. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Assessment takes place as part of on-going learning and teaching, periodically and at transitions. This
provides a holistic view of a child’s or young person’s progress
List the forms of assessment that you routinely use in your
daily work to judge learners’ progress, and enable them to
judge their own progress in relation to agreed outcomes
and targets; for example, sharing learning outcomes,
questioning to check on understanding, self and peer
assessment, etc.
Next to each of the forms of assessment you have listed,
write a sentence describing how you use the assessment
information that you have gathered. Which forms are most
useful in helping you to plan future learning, as well as
address immediate learning issues?
How do you monitor and record an individual’s learning over
a period of time, for example over a block or a term, or
over one or more school sessions? How do you
use that information?
Assessment during learning:
Teachers assess constantly as part of daily learning and teaching. They do this, for example, by watching and listening to learners carrying out tasks, by looking at what they write and make and by considering how they answer questions. They get to know their learners well, build up a profile of their progress, strengths and needs and involve them in planning what they need to learn next. Effective ongoing assessment is about establishing where children and young people are in their learning, where they are going and how best to get there. It is important that teachers use the evidence about learning to provide useful feedback to learners, to adapt learning and teaching approaches to meet their needs and to revisit areas where learning is not yet secure. Ongoing assessment, including in the senior phase, will include assessing progress across the breadth of learning, in challenging aspects and when applying learning in different and unfamiliar contexts.
Taking a close look at individual progress:
From time to time teachers also take stock of their learners' progress and achievements in order to be able to plan ahead and to record and report on progress. This is vital in ensuring that learners' progress is on track and that action is being taken to address any problems at the earliest possible point. This taking stock relates to broad standards and expectations, for example, deciding whether a level for a curriculum area, or part of an area such as reading, has been achieved or what additional learning and support is needed. It involves teachers in evaluating a range of evidence produced over a period of time to provide a summary of progress and achievement, including for qualifications and awards. It can be carried out in a number of ways, including by weighing up all relevant evidence, taking account of the breadth, challenge and application of learning
Assessment of key milestones:
Well-planned and effective transition arrangements are fundamental to maintaining children’s and young people's progression within Curriculum for Excellence. These include:
pre-school to primary
between stages
primary to secondary
from additional support for learning units and establishments to mainstream provision
from the broad general education at the end of S3 into the senior phase
beyond school to positive and sustained destinations such as employment and further and higher education
Learners also experience transitions when moving school, class, or programme and where their learning is planned across a range of contexts within and outwith education establishments. Taking stock of learners’ progress and achievements is particularly important at transitions and all practitioners, staff, parents and support agencies need to work together to ensure continuity and progression in learning and must involve learners in the process.
Activities
Activity

18. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Watch the St Modan’s video Raising attainment
and achievement through young people knowing
their strengths and next steps as learners and Mosshead PS: Skills for Learning, Skills for Life.
Which of the approaches to assessment in your
establishment are most effective in helping to
provide a picture of a child or young person’s
progress and achievements? In what ways does
assessment help identify a child or young person’s
strengths and next steps in learning across all 4
contexts of learning within the Curriculum?
St Modan’s High School
Mosshead Primary School:
Activities
Activity

19. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Teachers have a deep understanding of children’s learning and development.  They
provide high-quality feedback personalised for each learner.
1. Consider assessment approaches for a particular learner or groups of learners with
barriers to learning in your playroom/class/school.
2. Use the grid below to record current practice and key areas for development linked to
the entitlements.
Entitlement 
Fair and inclusive
assessment approaches.      Current practice
Fair and inclusive assessment approaches.      Areas for development
A broad general education
A coherent curriculum
Senior phase
Positive destinations
Skills for learning, life and work
Support*
Supporting learners :
Every child and young person is entitled to support to enable them to gain as much as possible from the opportunities which Curriculum for Excellence can provide.
Building the Curriculum 3
This resource supports implementation of the Supporting Learners national framework.
Activities
Activity

20. Activity www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Recognising achievement, profiling and reporting progress.
As with all aspects of Curriculum for Excellence, the learner should be at the centre of all processes.  Reflection by the learner and dialogue with the learner about their learning is central to practice in recognising achievement, profiling and reporting.
The wide range of information and evidence of progress
and achievement collected by schools and other
establishments can therefore be used for a variety of
purposes. Recognising achievement, profiling and reporting to
parents are closely linked and focused on improving
learning and achievement. Education Scotland’s
interactive assessment group is located on the
National group area of Glow. It is is designed to
support the implementation of the national framework of
assessment. .
Follow the link and see examples of practice, including profiles, uploaded by practitioners
On the Education Scotland assessment national glow group.
Activities
Activity

21. Sharing standards and expectations
The National Assessment Resource (NAR) can support assessment practice. Follow the link and review the many examples of how schools and local authorities have used NAR to support professional development through developing their own materials.
Information about the new qualifications for children, young people, parents and professionals can accessed at the SQA Website.
Activities
Activity

22. Additional resources www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk
Dylan Wiliam reviews the nature of formative assessment and how
teachers can use it to gain better insights into student learning and
achievement.
Learn how St Luke’s High school meets the needs of vulnerable
young people by offering an integrated and enhanced transition
support programme when they are moving from P7 to S1.
Dylan Williams
David Cameron and Frank Crawford spotlight presentation (43minutes)
Additional resources