KHDA Inspection Report 2014/15: The Case For Assessment

This year, the KHDA Inspection report makes specific mention of ‘assessment quality.’  Noting although 2014/15 saw an impressive 28 percentage point improvement in quality of assessment rated ‘Good’ or above since 2008/9- there is still much to be done.

The report notes, “All of Dubai’s private schools conduct assessments of learning, but only a minority of schools conduct assessment for learning. In other words, too many schools only test what students have learned to establish how well they have done.

In schools where assessment is judged as good or better, it is more likely that students’ learning is assessed on an ongoing basis so that teachers can make adjustments to the curriculum and their teaching strategies to meet the needs of all students.”

While the KHDA acknowledges schools make use of external or international assessments at the end of each key-stage, it is the schools which make use of assessments, “across the age-groups to ensure that accurate, reliable and valid assessment information is available to them,” that achieve a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ rating from the agency for assessment.

The report states that not only can these assessments be used for diagnostic purposes, but also allows for continual curriculum improvement and for parents and teachers to gauge a child’s learning against international standards.

The 2014/15 report focuses on the poor performance of many of the 31 US curriculum schools and their continued failure to achieve ‘Outstanding’ ratings.

The report highlights the correlation between a school’s overall ranking and the quality of the school’s assessment rating and notes that many US curriculum schools do not employ sufficient international assessments to allow students’ progress to be measured against the international average.