Education (Assessment Arrangements for Key Stages 1 and 2) Order (Northern Ireland) 1996

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order.)

This Order prescribes the arrangements for the assessment of pupils in English and Mathematics in key stages 1 and 2, and, in Irish speaking schools, the arrangements for assessment in Irish and Mathematics in key stage 1 and Irish, English and Mathematics in key stage 2. The Order comes into operation on 1st September 1996.

The Order applies to pupils in grant-aided schools who are in the fourth year of the first key stage and the third year of the second key stage, but does not apply to pupils who have been assessed by an education and library board as having severe learning difficulties. (Article 2).

Article 4 places a duty on principals to make arrangements for the carrying out of the assessment of pupils and Article 5 requires such assessments to be carried out between 1st January of the year in which a pupil is due to complete the first key stage or second key stage and a date later in that school year specified in a document, entitled “Assessment Arrangements in Key Stages 1 and 2” and referred to in the Order as the Assessment Document, published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO), 16 Arthur Street, Belfast, BT1 4GD. Teachers are required to determine each pupil’s level of attainment in each attainment target in each assessed subject, taking account of the results of assessment units taken by each pupil, and to make a record of those results.

Article 6 requires school principals to notify the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (the Council) of those results and Article 7 requires each pupil’s subject levels to be calculated and requires the Council to notify the schools of those levels and certain other information.

Article 8 requires the Council to set in place arrangements to determine whether standards of assessment in a school are appropriate and to review the information sent to it by schools and the schools' marking of assessment units.

Article 9 provides for exemptions in relation to attainment targets in specified circumstances.

The Order also provides for matters of detail of the assessment arrangements to be specified in the Assessment Document. The matters to be set out in this Document will include the assessment units to be administered in each subject (Article 5), the arrangements for the submission of information to the Council (Article 6) and the arrangements for the review of assessments (Article 8).