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)

Holistic development – Kotahitanga

"Assessing or observing children should take place in the same contexts of meaningful activities and relationships that have provided the focus for the holistic curriculum … Assessment of children should encompass all dimensions of children’s learning and development and should see the child as a whole."

Te Whāriki, page 30

Sociocultural approaches to assessment:

  • construct “communities of learners”
  • support the ongoing development of learning communities with a philosophy of whanaungatanga that values the contribution each individual brings to the collective process
  • keep the complexity of learning in mind and are particularly mindful of the context.

A number of researchers argue that curriculum (and assessment) practices should construct “communities of learners” (for example, Jerome Bruner, 1996, page 84 and Barbara Rogoff, 2003, page 361).

(Book 1 defines a “learning community” as “children, families, whānau, teachers, and beyond”, fostering ongoing and diverse learning.)

Marilyn Fleer (2002) emphasises that what is lost in simple assessment measures is the “authenticity of complexity”. She states that it is exactly “the complexity of teaching-learning contexts, with differing interaction patterns, historical contexts and dynamics specific to classrooms” that provides that authenticity (page 115).

The complexity of children’s learning is increased where there are opportunities to participate in learning experiences that are authentic in the wider community.