Letter to the Editor - The promotion of continuous assessment throughout the school year

To The Age         The most important contemporary truth about school reporting practice is that there should not be too much of it ("End-of-year reports are 'old school'", 20/11).  A winding back of over-elaborate procedures is needed, in order to free up teachers for teaching not only the formal curriculum but also other insights, beauties and wisdom particular to each teacher in a relaxed and unpressurised classroom. The promotion of continuous assessment throughout the school year, rather than saving teachers from "avalanches of reports at the end of each term", may in fact only subject them to a continuous, year-long avalanche of assessment duties. And "old school" practice in "days gone by" may have been wiser and more humane than today's stressful reporting fashions.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave