Feature
Marcus Bhargava is Course Leader for Citizenship PGCE at London Metropolitan University. Liz Moorse was Subject Adviser for Citizenship at QCDA, now a consultant in Citizenship education.
Assessing Citizenship is easier when you’ve planned for it Marcus Bhargava and Liz Moorse respond to Lorellie Canning’s article on assessment in Teaching Citizenship 32.
Each Standards File includes a selection of a student’s work over a longer period of time to demonstrate their performance, and a teacher commentary on what they believe this shows about the student’s attainment. Lorellie’s integrated assessment system We captured students work in many forms – could be very useful when assessing Citizen- essays, oral discussion, presentations, model ship through cross-curricular provision. making, flow diagrams and preparatory However, there are some issues with the notes – to encourage teachers to look at the approach which is focused around a sumfull range of what students generate when mative assessment task leading to ‘back end’ assessing their performance, not just the assessment; it also risks over-complicating outcome of a lesson or final piece of work in assessment using frameworks such as APP a project. The Standards Files are a practical Speaking and Listening that may disappear representation of the subject standards and with the new National Curriculum. In this a benchmark to help with consistency in article we aim to: teacher assessment. They equate with hold• draw attention to the National Curriculum ing exemplar files of work in a school to ilStandards Files for Citizenship that help plan lustrate performance at different standards. better teaching, learning and assessment; • revisit the requirements for assessing Assessing Citizenship – Citizenship and using level descriptions; revisiting the requirements • highlight some key principles in assessing Assessment can be seen as the bridge beCitizenship effectively. tween teaching and learning. Students make We offer an approach that makes assess- good progress when given regular and high ing the subject simpler by integrating it into quality feedback by teachers to help them everyday teaching and learning, but which know how to improve. Effective judgements requires careful medium-term planning. about attainment require teachers to draw on a wide range of evidence. The specific Citizenship ‘Standards Files’ requirements regarding teacher assessment Our experience of developing the QCDA and reporting to parents for Citizenship are: Citizenship Exemplification of Standards 1. Teachers must assess each student’s perFiles, shows it is possible to assess learning formance at the end of key stage 3, against in Citizenship by integrating it into everyday the level descriptions and keep a record of teaching. The Standards Files: their judgement. • show teachers that different kinds of evi2. Schools must provide an annual report to dence or work generated by students is valid parents on a student’s attainment in Citizenwhen making assessments; ship for pupils in years 7 to 11. • show collections of students work can be used to make holistic judgements; and Level descriptions • support consistency in teacher assessment The level descriptions for Citizenship help by referencing the collections of students’ to establish clear national standards for the work to the national standards. subject and provide a tool for teachers when The materials are available at the planning progression. They help identify ‘Teachfind’ website: http://bit.ly/HTJV2y. the qualities of student performance (or
We offer an approach that makes assessing the subject simpler by integrating it into everyday teaching and learning, but which requires careful medium-term planning.
www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk / Summer 2012 / Issue 33 / Teaching Citizenship / 27