All assessment places demands on students and where there is a mismatch between the demands of the task and the knowledge and skills that students bring to the task, the task is not do-able.

Whilst most teachers teach content systematically and clearly, they are often disappointed by the quality of the work they get from students.

This is probably because insufficient attention has been given to the skills of the assessment which must be explicitly taught.

An assessment audit makes it clear to teachers what must be taught – knowledge and skills. These form the learning intentions of lessons and it is very difficult to write a quality learning intention without having completed an assessment audit.