I still find this aspect of assessment troublesome. The curricular targets present few problems: the numerical ones certainly do. I am happy that I know what I want to say to pupils and have a good understanding of what pupil progress looks like. All is well until we mention levels! With target setting so much part of the culture, it is inconceivable that we won’t be asked, increasingly, to show that all pupils are making progress, and none left behind.
We have to demonstrate that numerically, because school systems don’t allow for qualitative judgements. There must be a graph, and the graph must show even, upward progress. Spreadsheets and graphs need data and that means for many senior leaders NC levels, or woe betide us, sub-levels. This means we have to enter a world of spurious precision and semantic contortions. Even assuming that we are miraculously able to create a finely-runged ladder of progress, we still have to share the next target with pupils.
Therein lies another problem. If our last major piece of work was on interpretations and we are now moving to look at contemporary sources, it is hard to imagine how the targets set in the last
