Helen Skelton: Assessment - what's the point?

Do we really need to ask this question? Every teacher knows what the point of assessment is!
This is true to an extent, but there are so many reasons and methods for assessment and problems arise when assessments are created without careful consideration of their purpose.
With so much recent focus on retrieval practice and ensuring students are able to recall key knowledge, I had lost sight of other aspects of effective assessment. Through learning about assessment theory and design, and evaluating my practice, I have come to appreciate the vital importance of having the purpose of any assessment in view before deciding on the style and form of the assessment. I will explore these ideas illustrating with examples from my own experience and offering some simple suggestions for improving assessment design and impact.
My blogpost on this theme is here: elementsoflear...

[@pigsinblankets]

Great talk Helen. When you write prior knowledge assessments are you looking for core knowledge that will be vital to the new topic?