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This chapter explores underlying ethical tensions and dilemmas that arise through assessment practices used by teachers, specialist teachers, and other educators in determining a child’s learning. An ethical dilemma arises when teachers are aware that an assessment is not the narrative that best represents the child, and in doing so, further perpetuates the deficit orientation toward learning. While the policy context may reflect a strong commitment to inclusive classrooms and communities, assessment policies and well-intentioned school practices can marginalize students with high needs, simply because the assessment tools are not suitable. Ethical issues in the day-to-day formal and informal assessment practices used by teachers are explored; practices that serve to reinforce for learners who struggle what they “cannot do” or “do not want to do.” Ethical assessment practices that allow the dignity of the learner to be upheld through a celebration of learning, however incremental, are needed. As outlined in this chapter, some decisions made by teachers are not their own, as pressures from outside their control influence the decisions they make. Policy directions can influence the focus of assessments, and unwittingly create the ethical dilemmas teachers face. When teachers question and challenge assessment policies and practices, they can initiate change for all learners. This might include challenging the status quo and finding other ways to include students, more visibly, in their own assessment. In these ways, ethical dilemmas can be addressed and new understandings of assessment emerge.

The global emphasis on performance-based assessment marginalises teachers' professional work with assessment and affects what is valued and devaluated in education. Thus, it affects students, teachers and schools, how the education system is governed, external experts, educational industry and societies. The programme Assessment for learning (AfL), which developed in the wake of the comprehensive high stakes test regime in England in the 1980s, was initially meant to counteract the democratic deficit caused by the increasing focus on metrics and large-scale assessments. As a backdrop, this chapter discusses performance standards in assessment and their consequences and then asks: What potential do professional standards in assessment have compared to current performance standards, and what do professional standards in assessment look like? The following argument is elaborated: In the endeavour to make education meaningful and relevant for students and societies, there is a need to shift from a focus on (global) standards for assessing students' performance to a focus on professional standards for teachers' work in assessment.

Considers some of the issues related to the management of assessment within the classroom. Explores the forms of assessment presently being used by teachers in schools as well as discussing the notion of “continuous” monitoring/ assessment. There is a deliberate attempt to avoid jargon, with the emphasis being on what can be feasibly done in the classroom. Frequent revision and regular testing are suggested ways of keeping in touch with children′s progress in English, maths and science. Although emphasis is on managing assessment in the classrooms, stresses the need for a whole‐school policy on assessment if balanced, consistent judgements about children′s learning are to be made.

School teachers had difficulty in monitoring and assessing the students during the COVID-19 lockdown. This study attempts to understand the assessment and teaching challenges during COVID-19 and how this problematic situation was reshaped by new normal teaching.

The qualitative research included perspectives of 84 school teachers using an interview-based approach. Pedagogical assessment, societal assessment and personal assessment were considered in the study.

Content switching, student involvement and individual assessment are the challenges in terms of pedagogy. Buying power of electronic equipment, digital skills, study environment and distraction are the challenges faced in terms of personal challenges. Personal connect and interaction intensity is the challenges faced in terms of social challenges. Teachers adapted to synchronous, blended, flipped and asynchronous modes of teaching.

The authors’ study will support schools in developing their institutional plans to understand teachers' apprehensions better and to check the readiness of the schools towards teaching and learning approaches.

This paper reports the results of an evaluation of Human Achievement Skills training course conducted by the South Australian Education Department for 17 principals and deputies. The courses were based on a Carkhuff training model and were highly structured. Evaluation data were collected from three sources: interviews with participants three months after the completion of the courses; interviews with selected members of their staffs three months after the courses; and completion by staff of organisational climate questionnaires before the course and six months after the course. The evaluation showed significant changes in the behaviour of the principals and deputies in a number of areas of the H.A.S. course.

This chapter provides an overview of inclusive pedagogy, also referred to as the inclusive pedagogical approach (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011). Conceptually, the approach is predicated on a shift in pedagogical thinking away from conventional approaches that work for most learners existing alongside something additional or different for those (some) who experience difficulties, towards one that involves providing rich learning opportunities that are sufficiently made available for everyone, so that all learners are able to participate in classroom life. By focusing on how achievements in learning are realised through participation in the community of a classroom, the inclusive pedagogical approach acknowledges that there are individual differences between learners but avoids the problems and stigma associated with marking some learners as different. The second part of the chapter explains how the approach can be incorporated into the daily life of classroom activity using the Inclusive-Pedagogical-Approach-in-Action framework that was developed as a tool for assessing and gathering evidence about practice (Florian, 2014; Florian & Spratt, 2013).