Assessment teaching
... As a result of the White Paper, Education and Training for the 21st Century (DES and DOE, 1991), the inspection concentrated on three areas of quality; quality control, examinations and validation, and external assessment. ... Throughout this four-year period the quality assessment committee begin to consider how inspection should be taken forward into the second four-year cycle (Donaldson 2000). They found that the process of self-assessment and inspection had proved effective and had led to improvements in provision. ... The resulting framework, Self Assessment and Inspection (97/12), encourages colleges to take more responsibility for their own quality assurance. They are required to produce a self-assessment of their provision prior to inspection, and many are able to show that improvements are being made as a result of these self-assessments. ... In placing the focus of inspection on teaching, learning and student’s attainment it places the learner at the heart of the system and demands quality teaching. Ashcroft (1995) wrote: “Quality in teaching and learning is a value laden term and refers to the purposes, processes and standards of education. ... The first is “How effective are teaching, training and learning? ... It concentrates on the planning of teaching, the range of teaching styles used, the materials used and the effort and interest show by the students amongst other things. The CIF introduced a new seven point system for grading lesson, and gave a score in three areas, Teaching, Learning and Students Attainment. ... When looking at teaching the inspectors expect to see a well-structured lesson, a range of teaching styles evidence of assessment and control of the students to name just a few. ... In the IQR the quality of teaching was good with all the grades between 1-4, however, for learning and attainment there were 5 grades at 5. ... Tutors have spent an entire term teaching students the Units ‘UK Travel Destinations’ (Foundation) and ‘Major Short Haul Destination’ (Intermediate), for which non had any real interest. ... Key question four is, ‘How effective are the assessment and monitoring of learning?’ This question covers all forms of assessment used from initial assessment to summative assessment. When making judgements inspectors will look at the appropriateness of initial assessment, students’ assignments and marked work, forms of feedback given, individual progress reviews, internal verification and the integration of assessment into the course planning. In the IQR it stated: “All assessment is fair, accurate and carried out regularly, verified by internal moderation procedures for both internal and external assignments. ... Our moderators confirmed that our assessment is fair and accurate. ... Another weakness is that teaching materials are insufficiently adapted to meet the needs of individual students, while management should monitor this, it is the responsibility of the individual teachers to ensure that they provide for all students needs although this can prove difficult with the lack of resources available. ... Where possible staff should also be teaching in their specialist areas. The fact that I have taught unfamiliar subjects (Leisure and Recreation AVCE) for two years has caused me great concern, however, this cannot always be avoided and staff need to ‘pool’ teaching materials in a central file. ... While I understand that OFSTED will be equally critical, I feel that a teacher who has had experience of teaching a vocational subject with disaffected students could have dealt differently with these issues. ... Edward Sallis (2001) states: “There has always been a need to ensure that products conform to their specification and give their customers satisfaction and value for money” In the case of education the product is the teaching, the specification is the Common Inspection Framework, and the customers are the students. By ensuring that the teaching in the classroom is good and that the management and support systems are in place, the College will be seen as effective from OFSTED in the upcoming inspection.