PCET key terms

A school assessment approach that judges learning throughout the year and covers scholastic and co-scholastic areas, using both formative and summative tools rather than relying on a single terminal examination.

Assessment carried out during teaching to gather evidence about student understanding so that instruction and feedback can be adjusted immediately; it is diagnostic and low-stakes rather than used for grading or reporting.

Assessment conducted at the end of a unit, term or course to judge how much learning has been achieved and to certify or report it, typically through tests, projects or examinations.

Vygotsky's idea that the most useful learning happens in the gap between what a learner can do alone and what the learner can do with guidance from a more capable person.

Temporary support a teacher or peer provides, such as prompts, models or hints, so a learner can complete a task just beyond independent ability; the support is gradually withdrawn as competence grows.

A theory holding that learners actively build knowledge by connecting new information to existing ideas and experience, so teaching should provide exploration and discussion instead of only transmitting facts.

An organised mental framework of prior knowledge that helps a learner interpret new information and recall it; learning is easier when new material connects with an existing schema.

Gardner's proposal that people differ in several relatively independent abilities, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal, implying varied classroom activities and assessment modes.

Skinner's principle that behaviour is shaped by its consequences: reinforcement increases the likelihood of a response being repeated, while punishment or non-reinforcement decreases it.

Any consequence following a behaviour that strengthens it; positive reinforcement adds a pleasant stimulus, while negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one. Both increase the frequency of the behaviour.

A sequence of four stages, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational, describing how children's thinking moves from action-based to abstract and logical reasoning across childhood and adolescence.

The understanding that quantity, mass or volume stays the same despite changes in appearance or arrangement; its absence in preoperational children is shown by tasks such as pouring liquid between containers.

Variations among learners in ability, pace, interest, language background, motivation and learning style; teachers plan differentiated tasks and flexible support in response to these variations.

A system in which children with disabilities or other special needs learn in regular classrooms with appropriate adaptations, support and acceptance, rather than being separated into segregated settings.

A persistent difficulty in acquiring specific academic skills, such as reading, writing or arithmetic, despite adequate intelligence and instruction; it is not caused by sensory impairment or lack of opportunity.

A specific learning disability affecting accurate and fluent word reading and spelling, often involving difficulty with phonological processing, while general reasoning ability remains unaffected.

The internal or external force that starts, directs and sustains effort toward a goal; intrinsic motivation arises from interest and satisfaction, extrinsic motivation from rewards or pressure.

The ability to notice and work with the sound structure of spoken language, including syllables, rhyme and individual phonemes; it is a strong foundation for early reading and spelling.

Teaching reading by linking letters or letter groups to the sounds they represent, so learners can decode unfamiliar printed words systematically instead of memorising whole words.

The process of converting printed letters and words into spoken sounds and recognised words; fluent decoding frees attention for understanding the meaning of a text.

Constructing meaning from a text by integrating word recognition with vocabulary, background knowledge and inference, including understanding literal content, implied ideas and the writer's purpose.

Reading quickly to obtain the general idea or overall structure of a text, for example by looking at headings, first sentences and key words, without attending to every detail.

Rapidly moving the eyes over a text to locate a specific piece of information, such as a date, name or number, without reading the surrounding material in detail.

A conclusion drawn from evidence in a text plus the reader's knowledge, going beyond what is stated directly; it supports understanding of character motive, cause and implied meaning.

An approach that develops language ability through meaningful interaction and real purposes, prioritising fluency and communicative function over isolated grammar drills and memorisation.

A method in which learners use the target language to complete meaningful tasks, such as planning a trip or solving a problem, with language focus added around the task rather than before it.

The value a digit has because of its position in a numeral, so in 4,072 the digit 4 stands for four thousands and the 7 for seven tens; it underlies all written calculation.

A step-by-step procedure that reliably produces a result, such as the standard column method for addition or the long-division process; understanding why it works matters as much as performing it.

An intuitive grasp of quantities, their relative sizes and how operations affect them, enabling a learner to estimate reasonably and judge whether a calculated answer is plausible.

Finding an approximate value by rounding or using benchmarks, useful for quick checks, mental calculation and judging the reasonableness of an exact answer.

Perimeter is the distance around a closed figure, while area is the amount of surface it covers; both are measured in different units and are often confused by learners.

The variety of living organisms at genetic, species and ecosystem levels; it supports ecosystem stability and human well-being and is reduced by habitat loss, pollution and overexploitation.

A sequence showing how energy passes from producers, such as green plants, to herbivores and then to carnivores; arrows point in the direction of energy transfer.

A community of living organisms interacting with one another and with non-living components such as soil, water, air and sunlight in a defined area.

The continuous movement of water through evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation and collection, driven by solar energy and gravity and essential for freshwater supply.

Original evidence created at the time of an event, such as a letter, inscription, photograph, diary or official record, used by historians to interpret the past directly.

An account or interpretation produced later by someone who did not witness the event, such as a textbook, biography or history article, usually drawing on primary sources.

The arrangement of events in the order in which they occurred, together with the dates and periods used to place them, forming a basic tool for historical reasoning.

A systematic approach to investigation involving observation, forming a testable hypothesis, controlled experiment, data collection, analysis and conclusion, with results open to replication and revision.

A testable, falsifiable statement predicting a relationship between variables, framed before data collection so that evidence can support or reject it.

A factor in an experiment that can change or be changed; the independent variable is manipulated, the dependent variable is measured, and other variables are held constant.

A comparison setup in which the treatment under test is absent while other conditions are kept the same, allowing observed effects to be attributed to the independent variable.