Assessments – and Issues – for 1992

Since last year's first full run of standard assessment tasks at Key Stage 1 was reviewed in the September 1991 issue of the journal some improvements have been made in the assessment arrangements for pupils with special educational needs but other problems remain. David Bartlett, assessment coordinator, Birmingham Education Department, who wrote last year's review and Nick Peacey, SENJIT coordinator, report the findings from a questionnaire survey and a series of conferences. They make proposals for changes.     

ASSESSMENT – SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE – SOME THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS

ABSTRACT:  This paper wishes to clarify the definitions of the central terms relating to assessment. It argues that all assessment begins with summative assessment (which is a judgement) and that formative assessment is in fact summative assessment plus feedback which is used by the learner.     

Gifted –and Handicapped?

The 'Slow learner is handicapped if left to fend for himself in the ordinary curriculum of a school' but a clever child may also be handicapped and need special provision, argues Professor N. R. Tempest, Emeritus Professor of Education, Liverpool University     

University Financing 1979–86

After a brief resumé of the background to the growth of the university system in the sixties and seventies , - the period of the Robbins report and its implementation - the paper discusses in some detail the financial changes that have occurred over the period 1979–1986. This period covers the removal of overseas student subsidies, the massive cuts exercise of 1981, and the reallocation exercise of 1986. The methods of approach used by the UGC to the 1981 and 1986 allocations are compared and contrasted, whilst the paper concludes with some thoughts on the possible long term consequences of the approach that is now being adopted for grant allocations .     

Equal Opportunities – For Whom?

Peter Mittler, Visiting Professor of Special Needs Education, The University of Manchester, discusses the implications of recent evidence on the connections between social and economic deprivation and special educational needs.