Unit 1
Guidance

Unit 1 aims to explore the assessment and progression guidance as found in the Curriculum for Wales Framework.

Unpick the assessment arrangements and deepen your knowledge and understanding of assessment and progression in Curriculum for Wales by undertaking the suggested 'reflect and respond' tasks.

Assessment and Progression in Curriculum for Wales

Welsh Government - Progression Code

curriculum-for-wales-progression-code.pdf

Professor Robin Banerjee explains progression' in learning and how it makes the new curriculum different for learners and teachers in Wales?

Supporting Learner Progression:
Assessment Guidance

The 'supporting learner progression: assessment guidance' can be found here.
The guidance document aims to provide practitioners with direction when assessing progression within the 3 to 16 learning continuum.

Key Vocabulary for Assessment and Progression in Curriculum for Wales

Key Vocabulary for Assessment and Progression in Curriculum for Wales.pdf

Further information about the key vocabulary for Assessment and Progression in Curriculum for Wales can be found here:


Reflect and Respond:

On the supplementary Jamboard (remember to copy it) - summarise the key principles, principles of progression and key learning descriptions on post-it notes:

Jamboard Discussion, Reflection and Response

Assessment and Progression - What's Changing?
Frequently Asked Questions

A table to show some of the changes to assessment and progression in Curriculum for Wales.

  • What's Changing?

  • Why are we doing this?

  • What does this mean for our schools/ settings?

This is a useful document to share with all staff in your schools and settings, to develop a deeper understanding of the changes to assessment and progression as outlined in the Curriculum for Wales Assessment Arrangements.

Assessment and Progression - What's Changing.pdf
FAQ - Assessment and Progression.pdf

Curriculum for Wales - Frequently Asked Questions based on assessment and progression. This document will be updated with new FAQ from our schools and settings.

Please click on the image to download the document.

The Principles of Progression

Progression in learning should always be at the heart of curriculum design rather than starting with a theme and fitting the learning to it. In selecting curriculum content, schools and practitioners must use the principles of progression to inform their approach to progression. The principles of progression provide a mandatory requirement of what progression must look like for learners, and as well as the overarching principles, principles of progression are also described in the context of each Area.

Schools and practitioners must use these principles to inform all learning in supporting progression, recognising that learners progress at different paces.

The Key Principles of Assessment

Look at the 6 key principles of assessment as displayed on the diagram (left).

Reflect and Respond:

What do we know about these key principles?
What do these principles mean to us as a school?


We will be exploring these key principles

in more depth, in Unit 2.

The purpose of assessment

Assessment is intrinsic to curriculum design and its overarching purpose within the curriculum is to support every learner to make progress. It is integral to learning and teaching and it requires effective partnerships among all those involved, including the learner.

Assessment plays a fundamental role in ensuring each individual learner is supported and challenged accordingly. It should contribute to developing a holistic picture of the learner – their strengths, the ways in which they learn, and their areas for development, in order to inform next steps in learning and teaching. Assessment should not be used to make a one-off judgement on the overall achievement of a learner at a set age or point in time against descriptors or criteria on a best-fit basis.

Reflect and respond:

Reflect and respond to the questions on the right.

These questions are taken from the 'Curriculum for Wales Planning and Priorities Guide' and are an opportunity to reflect on your curriculum development so far.

You can use these questions to consider your progress in relation to curriculum development, and what you may want to consider in further detail.

The 3 main roles of assessment

Assessment has three main roles in the process of enabling learner progression:

  • supporting individual learners on an ongoing, day-to-day basis

  • identifying, capturing and reflecting on individual learner progress over time

  • understanding group progress in order to reflect on practice

When planning and delivering learning experiences, schools and practitioners should be clear about the specific role of each assessment being undertaken, and what the understanding gained from assessment will be used for and why.

Reflect and respond:

  • What does 'supporting individual learners on an ongoing, day to day basis' mean for our school?

  • How do we identify, capture and reflect on individual progress over time? How effective is this?

  • What do we currently do to understand group progress, in order to reflect on practice?

Assessment and Progression - What does everyone need?