Kei Tua o te Pae

Kei Tua o te Pae/Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars is a best-practice guide that will help teachers continue to improve the quality of their teaching.

The exemplars are a series of books that will help teachers to understand and strengthen children's learning. It also shows how children, parents and whānau can contribute to this assessment and ongoing learning.

We are making improvements to our download-to-print functionality. So if you want a printed copy there are PDF versions available at the bottom of the main cover page.

The quality of assessment in early childhood education – ERO(external link)

Assessment for Exploration – Aromatawai mō te Mana Aotūroa

The exemplars in this book illustrate possible ways in which assessing, documenting, and revisiting children’s learning will contribute to educational outcomes in the curriculum strand Exploration/Mana Aotūroa.

  • Assessments value spontaneous play initiated by children and comment on the learning taking place in such play, for example, making decisions, posing and solving problems, thinking creatively, and using the imagination.
    "The concept of “what might be” – being able to move in perception and thought away from the concrete given, or “what is”, to “what was, what could have been, what one can try for, what might happen” and ultimately, to the purest realms of fantasy – is a touchstone of that miracle of human experience, the imagination." 3
  • Revisiting documentation enables discussions about how learners have negotiated their way over obstacles and re-established their concentration after they have become stuck or frustrated.4
  • Assessments of competence include noticing, recognising, and responding to the learner’s physical achievements.
  • Continuity of the documentation records children’s perceptions of themselves as developing “explorers” and refers back to earlier documentation to encourage discussions of this. The document also includes opportunities to acknowledge that “failure”, or making a mistake, is part of learning.
  • Assessments promote a culture of success, where every child:
    "can make achievements by building on their previous performance, rather than being compared with others. Such a culture is promoted by informing students about the strengths and weaknesses demonstrated in their work and by giving feedback about what their next steps might be." 5
  • Assessments include evidence of teachers and children changing their minds and developing more useful working theories over time.