End-of-year benchmarks of pupil attainment at school are now regular features of local assessment. The debate regarding the banding of pupils on the basis of age has also subsided. Both policies were driven by the need to better understand trends in pupil achievement.
The recent banding of pupils in classrooms on the basis of age is also aimed at organising pupils into more homogenous ability groupings. The assumption is that similarly-aged pupils are likely to be similar in their ability to learn.
There is, however, a ‘but’. An educational system largely focused on pupil attainment cannot measure, as accurately, the quality of educational provision if it is unable to identify the complex array of pupil, classroom, school and policy-level factors associated with pupil achievement and learning.
Of even greater concern is the simplistic temptation to consider teachers associated with pupils who attain higher marks, for example in end-of-year tests, as better than teachers whose pupils do not do so well in such tests but who progressed more in their learning.
A current limitation of the local education system is that it is unable to identify which of its teachers and head teachers are effective and have invested increased effort to ensure added pupil learning. Due to this value-added assessment vacuum, credit cannot be given to effective teachers or head teachers. Nor is it possible to provide support to less effective education professionals.
Critics of educational effectiveness research will argue that assessing teacher and school effectiveness on the basis of scores achieved on a standardised test is unacceptable. Proponents of educational effectiveness research counter-argue that value-added assessment is essential so that schools and teachers obtain feedback for school improvement.
The third way I recomend involves the application of judiciously applied quantitative modes of pupil assessment, such as annual standardised assessment in basic and social/affective skills, alongside qualitative and more regularly-applied assessment, such as classroom and school-based observations of leadership, teaching and learning. This would facilitate a fairer assessment of pupils, teachers and schools, after adjusting for the myriad factors likely to contribute to pupils’ achieved outcomes.
There are other reasons why there is need to track changes in the direction in pupil outcome over time, coupled with a systemic approach that tracks changes in the quality of policy, school and classroom-level factors.
For parents, a standardised measure of the gains their child achieved over time is a better reflection of their child’s learning than a snapshot of attainment in time.
It is fairer if head teachers and teachers are held accountable on the basis of longer-term trends in pupil outcome.
It is fairer if head teachers are judged on the basis of what their leadership has positively contributed to, instead of being judged on the mean outcomes of pupils.
It is fairer if parents judge teachers on the basis of what their child has learnt rather than on a mark their child attained in a moment in time.
Whether Maltese education authorities embrace value-added approaches remains to be seen. But it is essential that limitations of the local education system are recognised and improved in ways that better reflect the hard work, effort and personal investment many teachers and head teachers dedicate to the individual learning needs of pupils.
Lara Said is a lecturer at the Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education at the University’s Faculty of Education.