How to Develop Students` Assessment System

Formative, ongoing, summative assessment. How should these types of assessment interact and complement each other? And what are the peculiarities of assessment of students with special educational needs? And how to develop assessment rules common to the entire school? Here is some practical advice from experts on how to create an assessment system in an educational institution.

How to assess students’ achievements in NUS

Formative assessment is gaining more and more importance, aimed at identifying the successes, gaps and mistakes of each child and not comparing children. The child’s success is determined not by a numerical grade, but by feedback, in which the teacher emphasizes success, and recommends issues on which it is necessary to work on and the way how to work on them. Formative assessment is inseparable from the educational process and takes place continuously.

Instead, summative assessment (thematic, semester and annual) is conducted to determine how real learning outcomes correspond to expectations (fixed in standards as well as in curricula and study programs). The teacher can set the number of final papers and the time of their completion independently, based on general recommendations.

Formative assessment is carried out by the teacher together with the child. The summative assessment is done by the teacher, but the teacher can offer the student to assess himself and compare his/her self-assessment with the teacher’s one. A school psychologist may be involved in the assessment of transversal skills.

The teacher has the right to choose the forms, methods and assessment tools, based on normative recommendations and educational technologies that he/she uses as well as taking into account students’ individual characteristics.

Assessment functions in NUS

When choosing an assessment method, it is worth remembering that it has several main functions:

• motivational, activating internal and external motivations for learning;
• diagnostic, helping determine the level of students’ competence, making them aware of gaps in their knowledge;
• corrective, guiding students’ efforts to overcome difficulties;
• prognostic, setting learning goals for the future;
• developmental, motivating reflection and self-improvement;
• learning, providing feedback between the teacher and the student;
• educational, adjusting the child to the development of his own organization;
• managerial, providing the necessary information for decision-making.

For example, when a teacher receives feedback from a student, a teacher understands whether a student needs additional support during the task performance. Instead, the child can understand what is necessary to do to improve his/her skills.

Peculiarities of assessment in inclusive classes

There are some differences in the criteria for assessing learning outcomes of children with special educational needs. Key elements of assessment of such children and the specifics of the criteria can be described in the Individual Development Program (IDP). For the assessment of students with special educational needs, those knowledge, skills and types of activities that students cannot master or the mastering of which is difficult, are removed or replaced. When choosing forms of ongoing and summative assessment, capabilities of children with special educational needs should be taken into account.

For instance, the teacher can change the conditions, instructions, time or place for completing the task. So, for a child with hearing impairment, traditional dictation should be replaced with a test task. After all, with the help of tests, without relying on hearing, you can check whether the child has mastered certain grammatical skills. On the other hand, a visually impaired student may need more time for the same dictation if he/she uses Braille.

Also, in some cases, bright pages of a textbook with many pictures might encumber a student with special educational needs. Then the teacher or his/her assistant covers the page of the textbook with a white sheet or offers each task on a separate sheet, avoiding things that are extra..

There are significant differences in the criteria for assessing students with intellectual disabilities. It is necessary to take into account the capabilities of children and the peculiarities of how they master the material. The object of assessment in this case should be the dynamics of development. It is determined in relation to previous individual achievements. At the same time, both the progress of students in mastering the subject and the formation of life competence (for example, the ability to serve oneself) are assessed, in accordance with the goals defined in IDP.

«If the child needs, we can adapt the educational material,» says Kateryna Tsapenko, a teacher of the pilot class of the Barvinok NUS school (Kyiv). «We can make the task easier in some ways. Or we can make it more difficult if the child performs the exercise much faster than others. For example, when a child has a fear of public speaking, you can offer him/her not to defend the project in front of everyone, but to make a lapbook.

If it is difficult for the child to express his/her opinion in writing, we can propose to express it orally. But we should gradually prepare the child to work effectively in writing as well. Let it be one sentence at first, then two, and so on.

Another example – when all children retell the text we can give the child the opportunity to read it aloud. As a result, tomorrow the child will say one sentence, and the day after tomorrow – already several sentences. There are always dynamics, and that is exactly what we strive for in the current approach to learning.»

Algorithm for developing school assessment rules

1. Teachers should familiarize themselves with regulatory documents and state requirements regarding the scale and assessment criteria. After that, the pedagogical council will discuss and make decisions regarding:

• which scale to apply – national or own, developed by the school. In the case of using own scale, it should be transformed into a national one during the annual assessment (to fill in external documentation);
• which form of a «Certificate of Achievements» to use. MoES offers a form, but it is not the only one allowed. The school has the right to make changes at the level of subjects and learning outcomes (they must comply with the State Standard for Primary Education).
• In what form to keep documentation – electronic or as hard copies..

The approved assessment rules can be included in the curriculum of the educational institution.

2. For each of the subjects, the teacher forms specific learning goals. They can be broken down into smaller, intermediate results (for example, by topic). Teachers are recommended to convey the expected results to students and their parents at the beginning of studying each topic.

3. For each subject, the teacher determines the number and format of summative assessment.

4. The teacher together with his/her colleagues decides how to record students’ learning outcomes. This can be filling out forms for diagnostic works, assessing written work, providing written feedback, storing works in a portfolio, etc. Also, the teacher chooses where these works will be performed – in  exercise books, on separate forms as well as how these works should be signed and where to store them.

5. The teacher or teaching staff, together with the administration, decides how to assess ongoing written works and how to provide feedback to the student and his/her parents.

6. It is necessary to develop and explain to students a scale of self- and mutual assessment. For example: I did well / I succeeded / I still have to work, etc.

7. Plan how and when to hold scheduled meetings with students and their parents and communicate them to all interested parties.

8. An optional but recommended point is to plan individual work with students to help them set their own goals for certain periods of studies (this should be done after diagnostic work).

You can read more about formative, ongoing and summative assessment in a free online course describing methods and specifics of assessment in the New Ukrainian School «Assessment without Devaluation», developed by the Learning Together project + the EU project and EdEra with the financial support of the European Union and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland .

This material was prepared for the Learning Together project and published on the NUS portal at the end of 2021.

This document was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.