- Formative assessment practices in early childhood settings: evidence and implementation in NSW (PDF, 5MB)
- One page summary (PDF, 255KB)
- Read more about formative assessment on Transition to school resources for educators
- Read NSW preschool assessment study: review of formative assessment practices in early childhood settings (PDF, 13.1MB) – a report by Macquarie University which explores the ways NSW early childhood educators are using formative assessment in the services, to identify and plan for the individual learning needs of children to support a strong transition to school.
Summary
This paper aims to support early childhood education (ECE) practitoners and policy-makers by bringing together the available research on formative assessment, contextualised to early childhood education in NSW. Formative assessment is an educational practice that has broad applicability and support.
In this paper, several aspects of formative assessment are discussed:
- What formative assessment is and how it can be used in ECE settings
- Current and emerging evidence supporting formative assessment practices in these settings
- How several NSW ECE services have embedded formative assessment in their practices
- The implications of the research for fostering greater application of evidence-based approaches in the NSW ECE sector.
