June | 2018 | missdcoxblog

I’m embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t really considered how assessment might be a coherent system in key stage 3 until recent years. This process began when we were asked to consider how we would assess in our subjects when levels were no longer necessary. We’ve been lucky enough to be given the time to continue to develop our ideas over the past couple of years rather than having to have a system that we were stuck with. Sadly, some schools hastily implemented new systems that were essentially levels rehashed. I blogged on the ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ of levels here and how some have replaced levels with levels.

At the start of this process, I initially thought about what it is that we wanted to assess. I ended up with a lot of potential ideas. This is where RE colleagues are divided; what can/should we assess in RE. I took ideas from the new A Levels and GCSE. I don’t believe that it is our job to attempt to assess things like empathy or students’ own opinions. I think that students should be taught argument writing skills and key ideas of critical thinking in order to create coherent, well evidenced arguments. Alongside this we should be clear what knowledge we want them to learn and be able to apply throughout the keys stage.

assessment chart

Our original ideas started with far too many things for the curriculum time we have. We have reduced what we assess down to very few things. We see year 7 once a week; it would be impossible to assess everything all the time. Reading Daisy Christodoulou’s book ‘Making good progress’ confirmed my instinct that we don’t need to assess everything all the time. I’ve come to the belief that less is more; they shouldn’t be doing everything needed for GCSE at key stage 3 and key stage 3 shouldn’t be full of GCSE exam questions. However, key stage 3 should be a foundation for those who take GCSE but also a foundation in logical argument skills if they choose not to continue their study of religions.

We’ve treated the skills as we have treated knowledge. In order for students to develop and improve their skills we have repeated them and spaced them over time. However knowledge itself is really important. It is included in two ways. Students are tested using multiple choice quizzes at the start/middle/end of each topic and then these quizzes are spaced/interleaved throughout the year. We’ve yet to do this across year 7 and year 8. I’ve not heard of anyone doing this and I’m not sure that it’s necessary with so little curriculum time. I’m prepared to be challenged on this.

The second way we look at knowledge is through these written assessments. We look for depth of knowledge and use of specific keywords to show their understanding of the content they’ve been taught.

The tracker above shows the frequency of coverage and at the moment they are used as a RAG system. We have 6 ‘assessments’ over the year, one each half term indicated by 1a, 1b etc. These are linked to clear, ‘objective’ criteria for each element. For example, using quotations includes using quotation marks, referencing and explain what the quotation means.

I’m currently pondering if this is sufficient as there can be many ways that a student partly meet the criteria yet the system isn’t detailed enough to show this. I want to keep it simple but it needs more clarity of development. Any thoughts/ideas on developing this, welcomed.

Is it a levels system?

The key to ensuring that this isn’t levels rehashed is that we don’t have to amalgamate these individual aspects of their learning to create one letter/number/level/grade. We use this tracker and other sources to use out professional judgement on whether students are making progress. It’s not a science but we’re moving towards making it as clear and objective as possible.

This system has the same issues as many assessment systems. One written assessment is not necessarily a true snapshot of what a student can do. Using it to consider progress is full of flaws. However, as we continue to refine it I feel it is better than using generalised summary statements or grades that conflate everything into one. We’re still working on it. Suggestions welcomed.

It is important that supporting pupils’ metacognition and self-regulation skills isn’t seen as something ‘extra’ for teachers to do, but an effective pedagogy that can be used to support their normal classroom practice.

EEF 2018

1. Why this is wrong

If in class questioning/discussion, you can ask the student themselves why their answer is wrong or ask another student to explain why. If in written work use WTIW (Why This Is Wrong -I just made that up) and get students to write a brief explanation to show they’ve understood the error.

At GCSE our students write their own multiple choice questions. This is always a good time to identify misconceptions if they credit an incorrect answer. WTIW is a quick way for them to correct their work and learn from their error. They won’t learn from a ’X’ on their work.

2. Use a visualiser*

There are lots of ways it can be used but using it alongside your own live commentary whilst ‘being a student (guided practice)’ is very useful.

I put a GCSE question on it, and unpick and annotate ready for answering the question. What does this word mean? What quotation could I use? What core knowledge/teaching can I reference?

They don’t even need to answer the question. Practising the thought process and annotation is powerful by itself.

* other methods are just as effective: interactive whiteboard, annotation on whiteboard, overhead projector…

3. Why did we do this?

A simple strategy to get students thinking about the value of an activity; ask them why you got them to do it. If there isn’t an answer that links to learning then you may want to rethink the activity.

4. This is a good one (or WAGOLL if you want another acronym)

Modelling a good version of the outcome you want from students gives them something to visualise. A worked example or a sample answer does the job. Discuss why it’s good. Annotate and highlight the important parts.

One way I do this is to write a ‘perfect’ answer on a slide and for the following slides copy the same answer then take one element away from it each slide . I get students to identify which part is missing each time. A kind of spot the difference that allows them to identify all the aspects that make it a great paragraph.

5. What do you need to focus on?

None of the nonsense of walking into a classroom asking students what their target is or what they need to do to get to the next level. If teachers are explicit in what students need to be able to do in the specific skill or topic they’re studying they should also know what they need to improve on which cannot be answered in a simple sentence to the stranger coming in the lesson.

Students won’t know what they need to do better by osmosis; give them the criteria of what makes a good one and then use their own work to identify what needs improving. Teacher feedback should use the same language. Ambiguous phrases like ‘add more detail’ and ‘revise more’ are not acceptable.

A simple way I do this is to feedback on a piece of work with one or two things they need to do to improve. In their next piece of work they write these on a sticker (could easily be written at the top of the work) and then they must ensure that they complete these things in the new piece of work. They can colour code them and then highlight in their work where they’ve addressed them. Repeat with the same targets in the next few pieces of work. Just because they’ve done it once does not mean they’ve nailed it.