Professional Development for Quality Teaching

Hear current opinion on summative and formative assessment, and discover what the future might hold for Assessment for Learning in primary and secondary schools, in this whole-school video.

Professor Dylan William of the Institute of Education outlines why he believes a shift away from formal summative testing for schools, and towards using assessment for learning in the classroom, would be a more effective way to improve education.

This video also addresses some of the debate around the introduction of the government's assessment for learning strategy, Assessing Pupil's Progress (APP), a hybrid of formative and summative forms of assessment.

Among the various views from schools and experts, some argue for a lighter footprint for summative testing while others believe that schools can't be 'secret gardens' with nobody on the outside knowing what's happening.