Kei Tua o te Pae

Kei Tua o te Pae/Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars is a best-practice guide that will help teachers continue to improve the quality of their teaching.

The exemplars are a series of books that will help teachers to understand and strengthen children's learning. It also shows how children, parents and whānau can contribute to this assessment and ongoing learning.

We are making improvements to our download-to-print functionality. So if you want a printed copy there are PDF versions available at the bottom of the main cover page.

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Kei Tua o te Pae/Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars is a best-practice resource that will help teachers continue to improve the quality of their teaching. The exemplars consist of a series of books that will help teachers to understand and strengthen children’s learning and show how children, parents and whānau can contribute to this assessment and ongoing learning.

The task of getting every page of the exemplars online will take some time. In most cases, the introduction has be…

Background

The Early Childhood Education Learning and Assessment Exemplar project started as a pilot project alongside the Ministry of Education's National Exemplar project in schools. Collaborative, credit-based narrative assessment is at the heart of the approach. Narrated stories document children's engagement in learning experiences. Subsequent assessment of the learning informs ongoing learning. The stories and assessments are presented in children's portfolios for children, families an…

What are the early childhood exemplars? He aha ngā tauaromahi kōhungahunga?

The following definition of exemplars was developed by advisers and co-ordinators during the exemplar project:

"Exemplars are examples of assessments that make visible learning that is valued so that the learning community (children, families, whānau, teachers, and others) can foster ongoing and diverse learning pathways."

This definition has a number of aspects.

Exemplars are examples of assessments. The exemplars in this resource have been sent to the project or collected by co-or…

The annotations to the exemplars – Ngā tuhinga mō ngā tauaromahi

The exemplars are followed by annotations that provide focused comment on each exemplar. These annotations follow a standard question-and-answer format.

What’s happening here?
The answer gives a brief description of what’s happening in each exemplar.

What aspects of [the area specified] does this assessment exemplify?
The answer refers back to the explanations in the exemplar book’s front pages. It explains why this assessment was chosen. (The exemplar may also illustrate other aspects of asse…

Kei tua o te pae – Beyond the horizon

This resource is titled Kei Tua o te Pae, a line from an oriori (lullaby) by Hirini Melbourne. There are a number of images in this oriori that can be applied to development, learning, and assessment for learning.

Assessment for learning – Te aromatawai mō te akoranga

In this section
Noticing, recognising, and responding
Having clear goals
Documenting assessment
Everyday contexts
Protecting and enhancing the motivation to learn
Acknowledging uncertainty
Listening to children
Collective assessments
Keeping a view of learning as complex

Noticing, recognising, and responding

In this project, assessment for learning is described as “noticing, recognising, and responding”. This description comes from Bronwen Cowie’s work on assessment in science classrooms (2000). It was useful to the teachers in her study, and early childhood teachers have found it useful as well. These three processes are progressive filters. Teachers notice a great deal as they work with children, and they recognise some of what they notice as “learning”. They will respond to a selection of what th…

Having clear goals

Assessment for learning implies that we have some aims or goals for children’s learning. Te Whāriki provides the framework for defining learning and what is to be learned. The goals and indicative learning outcomes are set out in strands.

Documenting assessment

Some assessment will be documented, but most of it will not. There should be a balance between documented and undocumented interactions, and the 2 kinds of interaction should be in tune with each other.

The phrase "assessment for learning" implies an assumption that we develop ideas about "what next?". (The exemplars include many examples of planning from assessments.) Usually the child will decide “what next?”. For example, a child may decide whether to repeat an attempt on…

Everyday contexts

The exemplars in these books are about assessments carried out in everyday contexts. A major purpose of documentation is that it will inform everyday, undocumented, interactive teaching and spontaneous feedback, making children’s interactions richer and more reciprocal. The curriculum is at its best when activities and conversations are sited in meaningful contexts.

The following is an example of a typical everyday episode in a childcare centre, which happened to be recorded by a visiting resea…

Protecting and enhancing the motivation to learn

Assessment for learning will protect and enhance children’s motivation to learn. In 2002, Terry Crooks, one of New Zealand’s leading commentators on assessment, set out some requirements for effective learning.

"First, people gain motivation and are most likely to be learning effectively when they experience success or progress on something that they regard as worthwhile and significantly challenging. At its best, learning under these conditions occurs in the state Csikszentmihalyi calls “…

Acknowledging uncertainty

What does “assessment for learning” look like for the strands in which the outcomes of the curriculum are organised: wellbeing, belonging, contribution, communication, and exploration? Part of that question is how do we decide 'what next?'. Margaret Donaldson (1992) says that education “is about suggesting new directions in which lives may go” (page 259). Assessment is part of that process. But the phrase “assessment for learning” suggests that we know what an appropriate next step mig…

Listening to children

One way of responding to the inevitable uncertainty is to get to know the children well, to listen and observe carefully, and to respond appropriately. This enables us to stand higher up the mountain so that we can see more of the horizon in order to provide continuity in their learning. Book 4 includes exemplars in which children comment on their own learning, set their own targets, and do their own assessing.

Philippe Perrenoud (1991), writing on assessment in schools, warns that it:

"…

Collective assessments

In Hinepau’s centre, the documented assessments are both collective and individual (and often dictated by the children). Te Whāriki includes the following statement:

"This curriculum emphasises the critical role of socially and culturally mediated learning and of reciprocal and responsive relationships for children with people, places, and things. Children learn through collaboration with adults and peers, through guided participation and observation of others, as well as through individua…

Keeping a view of learning as complex

Vic Kelly (1992) comments:

"Accuracy of assessment is related inversely to the complexity and the sophistication of what is being assessed. And, since education is a highly complex and sophisticated process, educational assessment can be regarded as measurement only in the remotest of metaphorical senses.

page 4

Worthwhile educational outcomes are often complex, especially if they are about relationships and participation. Te Whāriki states that “the outcomes of a curriculum are knowledg…

Empowerment – Whakamana

"Feedback to children on their learning and development should enhance their sense of themselves as capable people and competent learners."

Te Whāriki, page 30

Sociocultural approaches to assessment:

include the children’s viewpoint when possible
take account of the powerful influence of assessments on children’s sense of themselves as learners
ensure that assessments of children’s learning within a Māori context are situated within a Māori pedagogical framework
recognise that asses…

Holistic development – Kotahitanga

"Assessing or observing children should take place in the same contexts of meaningful activities and relationships that have provided the focus for the holistic curriculum … Assessment of children should encompass all dimensions of children’s learning and development and should see the child as a whole."

Te Whāriki, page 30

Sociocultural approaches to assessment:

construct “communities of learners”
support the ongoing development of learning communities with a philosophy of whanaung…

Family and community – Whānau tangata

"Families should be part of the assessment and evaluation of the curriculum as well as of children’s learning and development."

Te Whāriki, page 30

Sociocultural approaches to assessment:

reflect the interconnecting social and cultural worlds of children
recognise that a bicultural approach is necessary when assessing children’s learning within bicultural and bilingual programmes
acknowledge multiple cultural lenses on assessment and learning.

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecologica…

Relationships – Ngā hononga

"Assessment is influenced by the relationships between adults and children, just as children’s learning and development are influenced by the relationships they form with others. This influence should be taken into consideration during all assessment practice."

Te Whāriki, page 30

Sociocultural approaches to assessment:

are reciprocal and responsive: they can be shared, negotiated, revisited, and changed
are situated within the context of whanaungatanga
are about assessment for lear…

Exemplars – Ngā tauaromahi

The exemplars are set out under the four principles in Te Whāriki. For each principle, there is an illustrative, but not comprehensive, list of criteria to look for. However, each setting will develop its own criteria that reflect its unique context and community.

In this section
Empowerment – Whakamana
Holistic Development – Kotahitanga
Family and Community – Whānau tangata
Relationships – Ngā hononga