Assessing Children’s Learning (Classic Edition)

"It is my sincere wish that the teachers of those thousands of children, who increasingly are also teacher educators, read and learn from Assessing Children’s Learning. The hope is that they will go on to make a reality of the ‘imaginary but not impossible classroom’ and make moral judgements and choices in the best interests of children." - Sue Swaffield, Senior Lecturer - Educational Leadership and School Improvement, University of Cambridge, UK

"Not all education books are worth a tired teacher’s spare time. This one is." - Times Educational Supplement, from a review of the first edition

Now featuring a brand new foreword by Sue Swaffield, this classic text, Assessing Children’s Learning, examines some of the vital questions that teachers and other educators ask themselves as they assess children’s learning across the curriculum.

The author sets out to offer an alternative to objective, mechanical approaches to assessment; she defines assessment as a process in which teachers look at children’s learning, strive to understand it, and then put their understanding to good use in the classroom where children are given both trust and freedom to learn. Throughout the book, teachers are invited to consider the choices they make in the process of assessment, and to acknowledge their right, their responsibility and their power to act in the interests of children.

Now part of the Routledge Education Classic Edition Series, this influential, inspiring and timely book will introduce the ideas of Mary Jane Drummond to a new generation of teachers, practitioners and other education professionals.

Mary Jane Drummond started her career in education in 1966 and taught in a variety of inner-city schools, including four years as the headteacher of an infant school in Sheffield. She worked on the influential Schools Council Project Communication Skills in Early Childhood and in 1985 she became a lecturer at what later became the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, from which she has recently retired. She has a distinguished record in research and evaluation and is the author of a number of studies based on observations of children’s learning in nursery and primary classrooms.