Assessment of English is necessary but should not only (or always) be ‘high stakes’ i.e. assessment which holds individuals or schools to account.

On a day-to-day basis, assessment of English should primarily be to understand what students know and can do in order to support their future learning.

There are four main purposes for assessment:

• to help students while they are learning
• to find out what students have learnt at a particular point in time
• to identify any significant problems that individual students might be experiencing or address any causes for concern
• to reflect on the effectiveness of the taught curriculum with groups of students against defined goals.

You can download the full UKLA Viewpoint below.