Summative assessment evaluates a learner's progress up to that point and provides a summary of where they are. It can be compared to formative assessment, which gives the teacher and learner helpful information for future work.

Example
At the end of the course, the teacher gives a test to see if the learners know and can use what they have learnt.

In the classroom
One way to make summative assessment more meaningful and helpful to the learner is to think about how work done previously contributed to the results. Teachers can ask learners questions such as ‘What did we do in class that helped/didn't help you in this test?' and ‘How did your own way of working help/not help?'