What is understood by formative and summative assessment will drive the whole school processes, which aim to result in a ‘valid and reliable summary’ of attainment (Davies et al. 2014). This section will explore the way the relationship between formative and summative assessment was conceptualised near the start of the case study period when the TAPS project began.
Three key members of staff attended the first TAPS cluster day in October 2013. Each were asked to individually record their understanding of formative and summative assessment; their responses are presented in Table 6.2.
Table 6.2 Formative and summative written task, TAPS cluster day 1 October 2013 - B5-Ph1
Head teacher Science subject leader ICT subject leader
What does ‘formative’ assessment mean to you?
Ongoing - day to day within the classroom.
Assessment that informs your teaching/planning and next steps in learning for class, groups, individuals
Purpose of formative is to inform me where children are ‘at’ in their learning in order to ascertain what the next steps are. This takes many forms – observing whilst they are working, listening to
discussions between pupils, questioning them directly, prompting etc. Examining work and responses within activities.
Ongoing - every day, every lesson. Informs planning, teaching, learning. Communication - colleagues (especially job share and TAs). Feedback to children: marking/verbal. Various methods.
What does ‘summative’ assessment mean to you?
End of unit assessment - capturing an end point. What has been learned? What progress has been made? Currently capturing a summative level. Data tracking. Testing (where/when appropriate).
This is matching pupil performance/attainment against national/external criteria set as benchmarks to measure and qualify
performance Data. Tracking. Testing as appropriate/required A necessary evil. Various methods.
159 Responses for formative assessment include repeated mention of: ongoing, informs
teachers’ next steps, many forms/methods. There appears to be a consensus amongst the three members of staff from School B that formative assessment is an ongoing, daily activity which provides information for the teacher; as noted in Chapter 5, timing is a key dimension of the assessment conceptualisation. The SL explains that formative assessment could take a range of forms and be utilised to plan a pupil’s next steps, whilst summative assessment was more about criteria matching. Repetition in the responses for summative assessment include: numerical data for tracking, includes tests where appropriate, capturing ‘an end point’ or ‘pupil performance’ which can be compared to ‘external criteria’ or a level. The Head teacher describes summative assessment as ‘capturing a level’ or ‘endpoint’ suggesting summative assessment is viewed as an end of term snapshot (Mansell et al 2009), rather than an attainment summary, a key difference also identified in Case Study A. The ICT subject leader describes summative assessment as ‘a necessary evil’, in line with Harlen’s (2013) findings that teachers viewed formative as ‘good’ and summative as ‘bad’, providing support for a value dimension to assessment conceptualisations.
These descriptions of formative and summative assessment appear to be quite separate, but the task asked them to be described separately, potentially accentuating the differences rather than any relationship between the two. In a different activity on the same day, formative purpose appeared to come to the forefront. A list of strategies for assessment (e.g. questioning, tests, observation, self-assessment), drawn from the PSQM data discussed in Chapter 4, were presented as a card sort (Appendix 6D) and in school groups the teachers were asked to sort the cards ‘with formative and summative in mind’. The task outcome for the three members of staff from School B is pictured in Figure 6.2.
160 During the card sort task and its accompanying discussion School B appeared to feel as though they should be sorting the cards in a particular way, perhaps into separate lists or Venn diagrams with an overlap for both formative and summative, like some of the other schools in the room. Their written notes repeatedly use the word ‘depends’, noting the purpose, context, timing and meaning of the words as criteria which must be known before
Figure 6.2 Strategies sorting card activity (with majority of strategies placed in the middle
suggesting they could be used formatively or summatively)
Writing next to sorting activity: Depends on how you define the terms. Depends on context of use. Depends on whether they apply to pupil/teacher eg observation, photographs, questioning. Depends what they are being used in conjunction with eg time in term/part of unit eg concept cartoon – (informative) elicitation, plenary (summative). All part of a cyclical process – overlap and inform. Use all for formative.
161 the card sort can be completed. This activity has also been used at a range of TAPS
dissemination events (Appendix 6E) and has often provoked a similar response with teachers first trying to sort the strategies into separate categories, and then coming to the conclusion that each strategy can be used for formative or summative purposes, that it is the purpose which defines its categorisation rather than the strategy itself.
School B’s final comment in Figure 6.2, to ‘use all for formative’ appears to suggest a dominance of formative purpose, but little link with summative: the relationship between formative and summative assessment is unclear in the Phase 1 data. The means of data collection could be strongly influencing the outcome, with the school attempting to match their response to what they perceived would be the ‘right answer’, focusing on the
formative ‘good’ side of assessment (Harlen 2013).