Narrative assessment
Looking for different ways to recognise learner progress?
Looking for different ways to recognise progress?
Find out how we can help you support students whose progress doesn’t fit standard models.
Narrative assessment allows you to report important moments of achievement for learners with specific needs.
You can also use narrative assessment to recognise progress in areas where conventional assessment tools may not be appropriate. Teachers have described that it can have a remarkable effect on learning.
You will get a richer depiction of learning compared to criterion-referenced assessment. Narrative assessment requires the assessor to notice, respond to, extend, reflect upon and communicate about important learning in which the student engages. More conventional modes of assessment often overlook this learning. It also requires a careful response to and reflection on the teaching strategies.
What makes up a rich narrative assessment record?
Using artefacts of learning that details:
what learning was observed
what teaching was observed
why this was important
what the next steps in the learning sequence might be
how those next steps might be promoted
a description of how the assessed learning links to the New Zealand Curriculum
strength-based description, acknowledging through the narrative what abilities have been noticed and what processes have strengthened these
repeated records which provide a picture of progress.
We can support schools through workshops, coaching and modelling to become skilled in all aspects of narrative assessment.
