Accountability and assessment: Gaps and grids

A recent major policy change in England dismantled the use of National Curriculum levels for assessing pupil outcomes and progress. Our study analyses how primary teachers responded to these reforms, reorganising their practices in a manner constrained by a well-established accountability culture. We draw on Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, truth, discourse and governmentality to understand our research focus: how technologies create particular language forms which teachers then used in reconstructing mathematics teaching and assessment. Through interview analysis we focus especially on the frequent use of the term ‘gap’. Analysis shows how pedagogical language can originate in the use of technology, affect the way teachers reconstruct practice/policy and potentially alter pupils’ mathematical experience