S.A.L.F. Self Assessment Learning Folders Placing Classroom Practice at the Heart of Assessment:

How can teachers work in the classroom in a way that helps children take an active and engaging role in the assessment of their work?

How can teachers do this while at the same time making sure that learning objectives are being achieved?

Self Assessment and Learning Folders, SALF was produced in Ireland to provide teachers with a structured framework that bridges teacher-led learning and assessment with child-led learning and assessment.

SALF is based on socio-constructivist principles of learning and provides a framework for teachers that enable children become more active in their own learning and in the assessment of that learning. SALF outlines classroom practices that support and enhance childrens assessment and learning using methodologies that best develop childrens competencies for peer and self-assessment.

Researched and piloted in Irish schools, SALF has been designed for Irish school children and their teachers, parents, guardians or carers. It clearly outlines the steps involved in creating, compiling and completing Self Assessment and Learning Folders with Junior, Middle and Senior Classes in the Primary school. It includes strategies for supporting the involvement of parents/guardians/carers and others in the process. SALF provides a framework for children to present evidence of their work and their assessment of that work across all curricular areas and beyond.

Features of SALF include:

• Self Assessment and Learning Folders provide a framework for children to present evidence of their work and their assessment of that work across all curricular areas
• Provides a source of information that can be used by them to make assessment decisions about that learning
• Personal to the child
• Respects the potential of the child
• Empowers children to discuss their own learning
• Encourages children to explore their own learning and the learning of other children
• Involves peer and public learning
• Provides activities that directly and positively build links between home and school around the learning of the child
• Bridges learning inside and outside school
• Creates a safe context for children to express their own thinking about their learning

The SALF process recognises:

• The role of the teacher as facilitator of the child as learner
• The central role the child occupies in the process

Authors: Joan Keating N.T. B.Ed (Hons)& Siobhan Cahillane-McGovernPh.D

The Self Assessment and Learning Folders (SALF) Starter Kit contains the 170 page Teacher Guidelines Manual, Tutorial DVD and one of each of the three SALF Folders.

About the Authors:

Joan Keating N.T. B.Ed

A graduate of Mary Immaculate College of Education Limerick, and St. Patricks College of Education Dublin, Joan Keating designs and delivers continuing professional development programmes for those professionally involved in the primary education sector. A former primary school teacher, Joan has worked as designer and tutor of professional development courses with the National Induction Programme for Teachers, the Professional Development Unit of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, the Primary Curriculum Support Programme and teacher education centres. The idea and design of SALF folders arose from her classroom practice at Scoil Cholmcille B.N.S. Kells, Co. Meath. She has presented papers and facilitated workshops throughout Ireland and in other European countries at educational conferences. Placing classroom practice at the heart of assessment, her work is characterised by the central role of the child in the process.

Siobhan Cahillane-McGovern PhD

A graduate of M.I.C.E, Limerick, Siobhan Cahillane-McGovern is currently Programme Director for the Higher Diploma in Arts (Primary Education) at Hibernia College in Dublin. A former teacher and lecturer at both St. Patricks College, Drumcondra and The Open University, she has presented papers and workshops at national and international education conferences. She has worked with student teachers, NQTs, Mentors and Master in Education candidates. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on classroom practices that support Assessment for Learning strategies with a particular focus on how these impacted on the childs identity as a learner. A keen advocate for empowering children as central voices in their own learning, she approaches research on classroom assessment through this lens.

Components of SALF:

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Age Suitability: All Primary

S.A.L.F.2011

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