This book explores assessment practices that offer an enlightening and enabling view of all learners. Following the demise of national curriculum levels, the book embraces a unique opportunity to change how children are assessed. Rather than simply replacing the old structure with a new one, it focuses instead on enabling children to learn in meaningful ways so that assessment becomes a tool for improvement rather than judgment. Building on two influential research studies, Learning without Limits (Hart et al 2004) and Creating Learning without Limits (Swann et al 2012), the book continues the story of an alternative `learning without limits' pedagogy.

Inspired by a relentless focus on every child's capacity to learn, the book explores what can be achieved when we remove limits on learning. School leaders and teachers, struggling against practices that seeks to define, label and rank, explore the opportunity to view assessment reform as a means of reducing inequity through `learning without limits' principles of collaboration, professional learning and inquiry. Children share their views and offer powerful insights into what may be achieved when limits are lifted on their learning. Consequently a liberating and alternative view of assessment is presented, achieved through children and adults working in partnership. Throughout the book, practical examples are offered, illustrated by real life stories, often about children who have achieved more than their teachers thought possible.

At a time when schools are in pursuit of new assessment practices and reporting of progress, the insights in this book about what is possible are highly pertinent for individual teachers, school leaders and teacher educators wondering how best to foster children's learning capacity.

"Alison Peacock is a treasure. She has remarkable wisdom about the purposes of education and the processes that make education work. In this book, she shares that wisdom, showing how judicious assessments can awaken students' motivation to learn and create eager, effective learners. Everyone who cares about children's lives and their futures should read this book!"
Carol S. Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University, US and author of Mindset