Assessment and school improvement in Slovakia (may be start of my essay for AfL course)

School improvement can happen in many ways from building development and equipment through management up to behaviour and parents involvement. However the most important and probably most looked at area is the

attainment the students. Assessment is integral part of teaching and learning, and formative assessment even more so, as it does not happen at the end but during the learning process.

Following the evidence from international studies, we can believe, that assessment for learning does raise students attainment and understanding. Therefore this will be the area of the school, which can be improved by good application of AfL principles into practice.

Now what does it mean school improvement and raise of standards in the context of Slovak schools. Unlike British system with more transparent and published Ofsted reports, league tables, Sats results etc. Slovakia does not have the culture of comparing schools or measure school performance. From this point of view it is difficult to point at whole school performance and claim, that it will improve as a result of good AfL programme.

However the national Monitor of Math and Slovak Language proficiency, number of absolvents accepted at good FE institutions, or even (may be more importantly) such subjective criteria as students enjoyment can measure whole school improvement.

Year 2008 saw the introduction of a new national curriculum and re-articulation of national aims in education in Slovakia. This brings new challenges and opportunities: All plans and schemes of will have to go through very careful revision. And as Planning is the vital part of AfL, this is a good opportunity to put this into practice. And to review school policies on assessment and planning and make AfL a part of school life.

Assessment in Slovakia is mostly for summative/diagnostic purposes and usually does not involve any outside agencies until year 9, where national monitor of Slovak Language and Mats takes place. Even compulsory tests and pieces of work can be left on the teacher’s discretion. In theory teacher assess student’s knowledge or skill against standard given in national curriculum and gives a grade. Half way through the year and then again at the end of school year this grades are the basics for an overall grade.

There are many dangers in this system of assessing students. Teacher is the one, who knows and understands the standards and success criteria. And this understanding can vary from teacher to teacher, so someone seen as good student here can be seen as mediocre in different school. Also the
use of grades as punishment or reward became quite common practice as well as great emphasis on knowledge and facts as this is very easy to measure. So those students, who are good at memorizing facts and behave well are more likely to success than those with learning difficulties
or behaviour problems.