Teaching and learning practices in schools are framed at both government level and at school level. This means that both the government and schools have policies on teaching and learning. In order to analyze the teaching and learning practices, an analysis of government and school policies is necessary. Assessment for learning has a positive effect in the classroom of modern foreign languages and mathematics. This is because AfL enables teachers to judge the attainment levels of their students in line with national standards. AfL has also proven to develop and refine the ability of teachers to understand what progression in modern foreign languages and mathematics is all about. For example, a teacher can easily find out the strengths and weaknesses of individual pupils in modern foreign languages and mathematics. The progress of pupils over a long period of time can also be easily tracked by teacher with the use of AfL. AfL greatly informs the planning of the curriculum to suit the needs of learners. It makes it easier to set meaningful curriculum targets which can be shared by all educational stakeholders (Black and William 9).
Despite the numerous benefits of AfL, it is noteworthy to mention some of its limitations that make some schools refrain from incorporating it as part of their curriculum, and some teachers shy away from implementing it. In most instances, the constraints of time and the constant need to improve student performance under such limited time make teachers shy away from implementing AfL (Hodgen and Marshall 156).
There are differences in how AfL is implemented from subject to subject as a result of the wide range of disciplines found in different subjects. English is a multi-disciplinary and highly subjective subject. This leads learners to judge their own progress of how they are learning the subject. This means that self and peer assessment are useful in showing learners if they are making progress or not. In mathematics, learning is usually built on existing prior knowledge. For this reason, learners of mathematics need a relational understanding of how content interrelates. In order to adapt to mathematical learning, students need to know the difficulties they face in the contextualization of new ideas. With the above in mind, it is apparent that as much as AfL practices across the curriculum are heavily dependent on questioning and sharing of success ideas and criteria, different subjects have different demands. This means that different AfL practices will need varying degrees of emphasis from subject to subject (Hodgen and Marshall 154).
Government policies on AfL are generally aimed at guiding teaching and learning, as well as reinforcing professional standards so as to disseminate best practice. School policies on AfL are generally meant to promote proper teaching and learning skills within the school, thus enabling students to achieve their learning goals and teachers to achieve their teaching goals. Government and school policies on AfL basically support and build upon each other with the overall aim of improving teaching and learning. Government policies on AfL revolves around every child knowing what they are learning, every teacher being equipped with knowledge on how to help learners get to where they ought to be, every school having systematic structures for assessment, and every parent knowing how their child is doing in school (Department for Children, Schools and Families 12). In other words, government policy seeks to articulate the role of schools, teachers, pupils, and their parents or caregivers within the dialectic of AfL through emphasis on an overall framework and context in which learning is based.
Government policy documents on AfL have been criticized for lacking specifics of how to improve learning assessment throughout the nation. The documents stipulate the need to have daily policies and periodic reviews that will allow for monitoring of pupils’ progress. Even though the training materials prescribed for use by teachers have been given, they rely on levels that are since obsolete (Department for Children, Schools and Families 34). In regard to school policy on AfL, some schools lack distinct AfL policy but instead have their own in-house methods of assessing teaching and learning based on their own set principles. However, there are other schools that fully implement government policies on AfL.
Work cited
Black, P. and William, D. “Assessment and classroom learning.” Assessment in Education 5 (1998): 7-74. Print.
Hodgen and Marshall. “Assessment for Learning in English and Mathematics: A comparison.” Curriculum Journal 16 (2005):153-176. Print.
