Assessment Policy and Practice in Secondary Schools in the English National Curriculum

This chapter describes the ways in which assessment policy in classroom music education in England has been both legislated for and operationalized in practice. It describes how changes to whole-school assessment legislation have found their outworking in schools and classrooms, which have become contested and problematic sites. It describes how assessment in classroom music has had to shift its focus from attainment onto progression in order to comply with policy. The chapter also points out the effects of a performativity culture in English school music classes, where the production of data has become a goal in its own right, superseding, in some cases, an attention to learning and musicianship. It concludes that refocusing on musical aspects of teaching and learning would be a good thing for the development of both the subject and the participating learners.