Good morning everyone and welcome to day two of the 4^th national conference of the CIEA

The theme of the conference today is Theory into Practice. Yesterday we heard from keynote speakers on the macros issues in the wider educational landscape and the impact on the emerging policy landscape from government

A landscape that is still evolving.

Out intention when we began planning this conference is first of all to set the new context within which assessment is being carried out within education , and then to analyse the impact of the changing landscape on practitioners which was discussed by our keynote speakers yesterday.

On the wider policy side we have seen the new coalition begin to talk about a Big Society in which the state is rolled back, people are empowered to take more direct control over their own lives, become more accountable for the actions they undertake and the decisions they make and be liberated from a bureaucratic state.

But at the same time as wanting to empower people we have these massive  budgets cuts. The Chancellor talked about a Bankrupt B retain planning to pay off its debts at 13% of GDP. Cuts which will mean the state cannot provide everything it used to provide, everything it would wish to provide and instead we face cuts, change and reductions in support and investment over the short-term.

Practice in assessment remains a core part of teaching and learning. Assessment forms the feedback mechanism in summative or formative assessment used to support transition or check progress against day to day learning goals.

Assessment supports the evaluation of effective teaching methods in the classroom or outside the school in accountability measures. Diagnostic assessment helps support the identification of need among learners with which to build effective personalised learning pathways that ensure each learner achieves his or her potential.

Any assessment approach begins with an intention following a period of diagnostic evaluation, From this intention, or planning phase, we enter a period of activity designed to undertake the effort which was intended, a course, a period of teaching.

An intervention follows in terms of an assessment or activity designed to check progress or summate what has been learnt or achieved so far. This could be an exercise or an observation, for example.

From this intervention we can produce evidence of activity, action or behaviour that would lead to an evaluation of us as teachers, the student as learner or our teaching methods or the intended or unintended outcome of our activity. We can then use this as feedback in order to change our own direction, reinforce our existing progress or reflect and link to previous learnt intentions.

So this day is for you the practitioner when we look into the context, the process and the practice of good assessment. Over the course of today we have a mix of speakers and seminars designed to give you valuable insights into what could make for good assessment practice, good teaching and learning.

So I hope you enjoy the day and come away with some ideas, some inspiration and some evaluation for your own practice.

Thank you