The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

153 The Teachers are the most important resource in schools. It is onneed for their skills and professional judgement that the whole enterin-serviceprise is founded. If schools are to become more accountable,training then effective patterns of assessment need to be developed.This means that provision for the dissemination of newapproaches and the scrutiny of existing ones must be madeavailable in the form of greater opportunities for in-servicetraining in this critical area.154 The need We maintain that the arts provide essential points of entryforinto understanding and shaping the worlds of feeling andpartnership personal response and that in their practice and assessmentthe arts should provide an experience of positive achievementin schools. The task for assessment and evaluation inthe future is to develop criteria for judgement about skill,understanding and levels of achievement. We suggest thata these should be negotiated and agreed by teachers,pupils, school administrators, with appropriate contributionsfrom external agenciesb in the field of examinations, there is a need to reviewmethods of choosing and training examiners, includingspecialist examiners for the arts, and to devise bettermachinery for consultation and feedback betweenteachers, schools and examining bodiesThe task is, and remains, to respond positively to the callfor accountability. The evidence of enhancement and achievementthrough the arts is in rich supply. We need formsthrough which to make it visible and the determinationthat it should not be distorted by demands for the wrongsort of 'proof.155 Summary In this chapter we have discussed and endorsed the need foraccountability in schools. We have called for more thoroughand responsive patterns of assessment and evaluation toachieve this and described the principles on which thesemight be based. We have drawn attention to existing schemeswhich are pursuing such principles. We have considered thegeneral arguments for examinations in the arts and we haveput counter-arguments. We have identified a limited case forarts examinations and have pointed to some of the anomaliesin current approaches. A new approach to examinations wasdescribed and we have urged the need for further researchhere. We have highlighted the need for more contact andliaison between primary, secondary and tertiary educationand see the kinds of evaluation patterns we have describedas playing a key role in this. Finally we have called for93