What is EMAC?

EMAC, a consortium of five East Midlands HEIs, was established in 2003, funded by the Training and Development Agency to support the development of accurate and consistent assessment of teacher trainees against the Qualifying to Teach (QtT) Standards. The outcomes of the EMAC working groups are presented here for use by any ITT establishment.

The workshops were premised on the following:

A view of assessment that is holistic in nature whilst addressing strengths and weaknesses in aspects of trainee’ student performance;
An aim to achieve better understanding about ways of assessing trainees using QtT Standards as a framework;
To attempt a more consistent approach to procedures for and standards of assessment;
The need to consider different approaches for Primary and Secondary.

The key purposes of the EMAC project were:

to develop better understandings about ways of assessing students using the QtT Standards as a framework;
to share current assessment practice about how the Standards can be interpreted in practice;
to develop materials that could be used to enhance assessment against the Standards.

Phase Two developed this further to make the EMAC workshop outcomes appropriate to supporting trainees in all age phases, and to make them web based, with links to TDA and HEI websites, so they become accessible to all stakeholders.