Are your staff confident, deliberate and well-trained assessors?

This course helps to develop teachers’ confidence and expertise in assessment, by building on their current knowledge and practice and unpacking the key principles of good assessment. The training sessions scrutinise the pros and cons of different types of assessment, and look specifically at the concept of mastery and how it relates to effective, formative assessment.

Our course content partner is Cambridge Assessment. 

This training course is suitable for teachers across phases, including primary and secondary schools. The four sessions are two hours each, but can be easily adapted to suit your timings and staff.

Session 1 - What is assessment? (Classroom context)

Objectives:

• Discuss the relationship between teaching, learning and assessment
• Explore the purposes and uses of assessment
• Examine the key principles of assessment: validity and reliability
• Discuss what makes for good assessment

Session 2 - Planning for progression 

Objectives: 

• Explore what is meant by the term ‘standards’
• Examine the idea of mastery approaches to teaching, learning and assessment
• Explore planning for progression

Session 3 - Developing and using assessment (1)

Objectives:

• Explore the advantages and disadvantages of different assessment modes
• Consider the key features of good questions and tasks (and what to avoid)
• Evaluate some example questions and tasks

Session 4 - Developing and using assessment (2)

Objectives:

• Explore the principles and features of assessment for learning / formative assessment
• Reflect on the impact of assessment
• Consider the relationship between assessment for learning and the mastery approach

We've created The Key CPD Toolkit to take the time, cost and effort out of developing your own training.

Using our training is simple:

1. Download the materials, created with subject specialists, and quality assured for your peace of mind

2. Quickly adapt the resources to meet the needs of your school 

3. Deliver engaging training, with the support of comprehensive facilitator guidance

4. Evaluate the impact of your training to identify areas where staff need further support