The Importance of Formative and Summative Assessment in Teaching

We assessed really regularly, but very often informally. Subject areas like mass and science would often do pre tests at the beginning of a topic or unit and then a post test afterwards. We tried not to spend a disproportionate amount of time testing. But we also wanted to know that what we had taught had been properly learned. So it was important that through a whole range of formative as well as summative assessment methods, we were reassuring ourselves that the way in which they were teaching was having impact.