The Importance and Value of Initial Assessment

WHAT IS INITIAL ASSESSMENT?

Building up a clear, accurate and relevant picture of an individual’s attainment and potential to use as a basis for negotiating an individual and suitable programme of learning and assessment opportunities.

Initial Assessment is concerned with both:

• What learners have already achieved – their attainment

• What they should realistically be able to achieve in the future – their potential

Initial Assessment is a crucial part of the learner learning journey.  It provides the information needed to agree and plan a learner’s starting point. It is the benchmark from which learners’ progress and achievement can be measured.

Initial Assessment needs to be done with learners rather than to them.  It should be of benefit to learners and help them feel positive about themselves and their potential to learn

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM INITIAL ASSESSMENT?

Initial Assessment is the first step in the processes of:

• Negotiating learning.  The key skill in improving own learning and performance is founded on the process of negotiated learning, where trainer and learner meet to identify needs and to plan and agree what they hope to achieve

• Continuous assessment.  Equally important is the process of reviewing progress at regular intervals, and giving and receiving constructive feedback; again, central to improving own learning and performance

• Developing a relationship.  Initial Assessment should help trainer and learner to get to know each other and begin to build trust and co-operation.

WHY CARRY OUT INITIAL ASSESSMENT?

Information about current interests and achievement can provide a strong basis for building an effective learning programme.  Initial assessment checks that the apprenticeship (both the job role and the training) is an appropriate programme for the individual. The outcomes of screening, diagnostic testing and induction tasks and activities can all be used to put together a detailed picture of the learner as they move through the different stages of the process.

Initial Assessment involves the collection of a wide range of information to form a coherent picture of                                the individual skills, knowledge, abilities and learning needs.  This information should be used to place them on an appropriate pathway which matches their skills, knowledge and abilities and addresses their individual needs thus improving their opportunities for success.  Without this, there are only assumptions.  It’s always

possible to make some predictions about learners from an application form or selection test, but it’s an insecure basis for planning.  Learners themselves bring assumptions about learning based on the past, and some of these may get in the way of looking ahead to a new way of learning.

It is really important to ‘Get It Right’ in order for the learning and support opportunities offered are the best possible match to their needs and learning needs.  A learner who is on  a programme at the right level and has interest and aptitude for the work they do will be more likely succeed in meet their agreed programme outcomes.

Initial Assessment can therefore help us to identify:

• The learner’s current abilities, skills and attributes – what are they bringing with them

• The learner’s learning needs – what they need to learn and which aspects they need to improve

• Their support needs – how will they best learn.  This involves both ways in which the learner is likely to learn most happily, productively, effectively and the kind of help they will most value

HOW DO WE ENSURE A GOOD INITIAL ASSESSMENT PROCESS?

A good Initial Assessment process should be learner centred.  This means that it needs to: 

• engage learners and be of benefit to them and their learning journey

• help learners feel positive about themselves and their potential to learn

Learners who move into the world of training with modest or limited achievements need to be individualised learning at a level that offers personal challenge allowing them to succeed.  They may need support with specific aspects of their learning.  It is important that the process is not seen as part of a deficit model that serves to undermine confidence by focusing only on the things that learners cannot do.

It is important that learners need to:  

• understand why we want to put together an early and accurate picture of their skills and needs

• have access to all their learning plans

• feel confident about how the learning plans will be used to help them

Many young people and adults have different levels of reading, writing, numeracy and language skills as well as other strengths and areas for development which may impact upon a learning programme.  A good process is one that:

• is completed early on – in the first few days or weeks of contact with learners

• is different from selection –  though information gained through the selection process should be useful 

• is a process, not a single event

• uses a range of methods

• helps trainers and employers to find out about learners

• helps learners to find out about themselves and their programme (what they will learn and how)

INFORMATION THAT CAN BE CONSIDERED DURING INITIAL ASSESSMENT

As stated above, information can come from a range of sources:

• the learner

• other professionals involved with the learner e.g. Job Centre Plus, Youth Offending Team, Schools, Colleges and Employers

• those involved in the learner’s earlier phases of learning

• the qualifications they have achieved

• the results of testing

• the outcomes of practical tasks and activities