In a recent white paper entitled 'The Importance of Teaching', the government sets out the agenda for educational reforms in England. The document ignores a fundamental and powerful tool that is available but still used by teachers: assessment for learning. Not only does the report fail to recognize this effective teaching tool, but it also states that teachers no longer need to develop a written lesson plan (Great Britian Department of Education 2010). This concern was also echoed by Lucey (Lucey 2011) in his article on the importance of AfL in schools and how the government has failed to recognize its potential on student learning. However, the government states that it will allow the practitioner to decide how learning will be assessed based on the particular needs of their student. The aim of this essay is to examine a Year 7 mathematics scheme of work to show that an active approach to AfL has benefits for both the teacher and the student they are teaching. This article will focus on AfL and not summative assessment, which is a rating given to students at the end of the module or end-of-year exam that benefits students but not their continued learning. In their article "Inside the Black Box" Black and Wiliam (1998) set out to answer three questions related to improving standards through the use of formative assessment and their conclusion was that the evidence provided in literature supported the hypothesis that formative assessment does raise standards Readers of Black and William's article agreed that improved teaching practice has benefits and that the ideas in the article establish assessment. solid learning strategies that enhance the learning of individual students or groups of students...... middle of article... ...s White Paper, Norwich: TSO Hattie, J. and Timperley. , H. (2007) “The Power of Feedback”, Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.Johnston-Wilder, S. (2011) Learning to teach secondary school mathematics: a complement to experience school, 3rd ed., London: Routledge. Lucey, C. (2011) “Why AfL is not a passing fad. », Times Educational Supplement, TesPro, Ofsted (2007) The Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector 2006-07, "SoW", (2011) available: http://www.kangaroomaths.com/free_resources/ks3 /ks3_sow_stage_3.doc [accessed 2 November 2011]. Threlfall, J. (2005) 'The formative use of assessment information in planning: the notion of Contingent Planning', British Journal of Educational Studies, 53(1) , 54-65. Wragg, EC and Brown, G. (2001) Questioning in secondary school, [New rev. ed.] ed., London: Routledge/Falmer.