Some Sink, Some Float: National Curriculum assessment and accountability

This article considers the Government's stated aims of introducing to British primary schools an assessment process which would be simultaneously criterion‐referenced, formative, moderated, related to progression and evaluative. Accountability, which has provided the main rationale for the process, presupposes reliability. In 1991, as part of the Bristol Primary Assessment, Curriculum and Experience (PACE) research, the same Standard Assessment Task (SAT) was observed in use in three Year 2 classrooms in different local education authorities (LEAs), providing a case study through which the reliability of the system is assessed. It is suggested that the variations in the circumstances and experience of teachers and children were so marked that the system is seriously flawed. The SAT discussed, Science 1 (Sinking and Floating), was dropped from the 1992 programme after severe criticism: the article questions whether this was the right response and discusses some of the wider issues raised.