Mrs Karen Roux and Mr Gabriel Mokoena from the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) hosted a seminar to discuss the selection and development of English Home Language passages and items. Ms Joyce West from Early Childhood Education Department also joined in on the discussions. Representatives from Curro Holdings also attended the seminar which took place on 21 June at the University of Pretoria’s Groenkloof Research Commons.

The purpose of the seminar was to identify high quality passages for the items development project. The CEA entered into an agreement with Curro Holdings to develop CAPS aligned assessment items. The selection of passages was based on a set of criteria such as length, content, theme, language and coherence. The assessment items will be developed with a formative assessment purpose in mind, that is, assessment resources meant to support teaching and learning. The assessment items are aligned to the Foundation Phase, Intermediate Phase and Senior Phase Home language. These items will have information that will assist teachers to understand learners' misconceptions and challenges in learning with regard to the acquisition of knowledge and skills during the teaching and learning process.

Curro Holdings is a private school owned company that delivers private education to learners all over South Africa as well as Namibia and Botswana.  Curro tests are being developed to assess the level of literacy education in all its schools as well as those of Royal Schools, BASA Barnestone and Future Nations school groups.