Thinking out loud: assessment

In amongst my roles at school is that of assessment coordinator. It's in the back of my mind a lot and as a county moderator I am acutely aware that we need to produce a system for our school, grounded in our curriculum, before I go out and act as a critical friend to others. For that's all I can be at the moment. With so many different systems, questioning a school's rationale for the systems they have in place may be the best I can offer.

 The confusing aftermath of the removal of levels has been captured brilliantly by @theprimaryhead in his blog post, Who Needs Levels Anyway? If you need a good chuckle, it's a must read! (Don't read whilst drinking tea. Spitting it out could seriously damage your tech!)

So how can we develop an effective assessment system?

As an advocate of all things formative, I agree with many of the messages in the Final Report of the Commission on Assessment without Levels and of course Dame Allison Peacock's Learning without Limits. I have written about this before, but having seen fleas in a jar it captures beautifully (scarily?) what happens when you put a ceiling on children's learning i.e. by levelling them.

 I have questioned my own practice considerably over the last few weeks, particularly in maths, and wonder if I have unintentionally been putting some of my children in a jar. That is another blog post, but some superb maths CPD and a relective moderation meeting have challenged my ideas and are helping me move forward. Although I heartily agree with much of what Tim Oates says, I have blindly followed some assessment systems without questioning them. Carry on learning eh? 

So here is what we have done so far at East Harling. It may not be perfect (yet), but it's our story and therefore we can redraft and tweak it as and when necessary. This will be essential over the next couple of years as we adapt our curriculum and aim to create a seamless system whereby assessment is an integral part of teaching. (When I say 'we' I am not elevating myself to royalty, but referring to our SMT, which consists of my HT, English, Maths and curriculum coordinators. Four of us have been deputies. It is an experienced team).

We use Pupil Asset at school, which I quite like. Under the new curriculum it takes the NAHT KPIs and allows you to click beginning, developing, embedded and not achieved for children. It then provides a DNA strip that will quickly show you what a child is able to do and where they struggle. For maths the KPIs are clumped into 'domains', though in the National Curriculum it is made clear that rich connections should be made between them, to develop fluency. 

At school we acknowledge that not all teachers are as familiar with this. We haven't had a staff meeting on it yet and you can't assume that everyone will have had a play with it. Equally, some teachers prefer to work on paper. Because of this, at the beginning of the year I created paper based tick lists for Maths (tweaked by our maths coordinator), based on the KPIS, and today have spent time creating them for English*. They need to be used in conjunction with the National Curriculum and the NAHT assessment frameworks and it is important that, especially for maths, you are not just assessing content, but fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Our expectations must exceed the NAHT descriptors so that learning is not limited (especially in writing where they seem low for some children). Because of this, our assessment sheets identify where an objective has been seen, (the child is) secure, (the child is) fluent and can reason and problem solve- the greater depth part. The latter may not be 'tickable' until the end of the year as children would need to show that they have mastered the skills across different contexts. I think it may prove hard to measure - and could be very subjective. This itself causes problems as schools may differ in their expectations as to what fluency and greater depth look like. 

I think that the Rising Stars assessment progression frameworks could prove invaluable. Why? Because it reminds us that we must not just focus on the things we are assessing (fleas in jars?), but all the things that will help make our children competent, confident, inquisitive, creative and expressive mathematicians, readers and writers.  

This is particularly important for new teachers who will not have the knowledge of the breadth of the curriculum, or those missing objectives. Likewise, they may not understand all the components that would make a child fluent with concepts such as place value, that the KPIs are only the big ideas that save us assessing countless objectives. And that's what we need to decide and tweak for our school by asking questions, like: What are the big ideas in our curriculum, the things that children must know at the end of each year? I anticipate that our method of assessment will be tweaked continously until it fits us. What we are desperate to avoid is the limiting of learning that Tim Oates and Dame Allison have attributed to levelling. Can we find an effective system that doesn't do this? If you have any thoughts or ideas, I'd love to hear them!

If you want to reflect even further on this, read (or re-read) @michaelT1979's 'Have we forgotten the rationale for scrapping levels?' or hot off the press, 'Updated assessment journeys' by @tim_jumpclarke. 

I'm still wondering how many schools are doing the same thing, creating systems, questioning what they are doing, becoming confused and going round in circles ...

* I will share these via google docs if anyone would like a copy

Learning without limits

Today I have been fortunate enough to attend the conference 'Assessment without Levels' led by the inspirational Alison Peacock and Mary Myatt. The opportunity to hear their messages (and network with esteemed colleagues) made it well worth being out of my classroom. I had envisaged live blogging, but quickly realised that I would not be able to do it properly, whilst listening to what was being said. It was too gripping! What follows in an overview (I have written pages of notes) and I have refrained from putting in quotes so that I don't unintentionally mis-quote, but have tried to capture the essence of what I learned. This is my interpretation of the day, so some of what I have written is not precisely what was said.

Alison kicked off the day by reminding us that we need to keep our principles intact and our children at the forefront. This sounds obvious, but maybe it isn't for those schools who have been judged as RI or inadequate. It is a message that was reiterated by Mary in the afternoon, who told us that what we do is for the children's learning and progress, not for OfSTED. 

Alison was emphatic about not labelling children, but keeping the door open - enabling learning without limits. We are sometimes in danger of limiting the children with the labels that we give them, even if our intentions are good. Giving children a level may limit, or put a ceiling on, what you expect from the child, or they expect from themselves. 

What Alison said about mastery really struck a chord and was particularly relevant in the context of my practice at the moment. I am a fairly experienced teacher, but in no way complacent about what I do in the classroom. I am always seeking ways in which to be better. I am familiar with Dweck's mindset work having read the book a few years ago and from returning to it this summer. The radio 4 programme Mind Changers (in which Alison and her school appear)was part of our inset training on our return to school, with a follow up discussion about it in our staff meeting last night. I am really trying to think about growth mindset in terms of mathematics and to be frank it is making my head hurt. I have gone from thinking that I am a 'we can do it' kinda teacher with uber high expectations, to someone who may inadvertently been capping learning. 

Alison said that real mastery is not knowing, but questioning everything. You think you know, but actually you don't. Yes! That's exactly it! My thinking is being challenged and I have become confused with my maths planning. Luckily, Alison unknowingly gave me the solution to my confusion! Although I like to think I challenge children appropriately, in maths children were often grouped by ability - at least 3 times each week. This to me was the way to manage the tasks they needed to do, pitched at the right level, to help them make progress. Yes there were many days when they chose the level of activity and I provided lots of opportunities for more open ended maths where everyone had the same starting point, but essentially children belonged to groups. I could talk about the children who developed resilience, the ones who could do but couldn't talk/share their learning and the ones who had a positive view of their maths, but were inaccurate, but that could be a whole new post. The idea that Alison shared about differentiation through having challenges that children select (challenge 1,2,3 or 4) is something I am aware of, but have not adopted as consistent approach. It makes perfect sense! I've always considered it to be successful when I've done it, but have never considered doing it every day. Simples?! It's something that I can implement immediately and observe impact. Our children already have brilliant learning behaviours, so I'm sure will learn to select the right challenge for them, and we have a culture of trust, which is another thing that Alison was very clear about. Children must feel confident enough to voice their ideas, views and opinions without fear of threat or ridicule. They need to know that it's ok whether they choose challenge 1 or 4, that there are no judgements made.

Mary reinforced this in the afternoon by saying we are responsible for creating an atmosphere of high challenge, low threat, in which it's ok to make mistakes. These mistakes are vital for learning. Mary also said that if we work on a rich curriculum, we won't always know what will happe and with uncertainty comes challenge. This is why I love the mantle of the expert approach so much - the children lead, you can't always guarantee the direction you will go and the challenge is exciting! Everything these two ladies said made me think of this approach, from student voice to building resilience and positive attitudes - and giving all children equal starting points. If you haven't tried this approach before I can tell you that you I am constantly surprised by children's responses, which are very often contrary to what you would expect from their 'labels' (e.g. NC level). It levels the playing field. What this approach also does is provide ample opportunities for children to share ideas, make decisions and have an impact - all essential in the new OfSTED inspection framework. Mary asked, what do the children have to say? Student voice is one of the powerful indicators of where you are as a school. Pause and think about this.

Indeed under the new framework OfSTED will look for

• Children who are confident and self assured
• Good attitudes to learning
• Children can discuss and debate in a considered way

Children need to learn to agree to disagree and that it's ok to have a different opinion or change your mind (drama techniques like decision alley springs to mind). OfSTED will ask what children are doing and why, so time needs to be invested on the latter. We must also make sure we identify and rectify misconceptions, check systematically for understanding, build resilience, give children time to practice and, most importantly, teach fewer things in greater depth. In the Q&A session at the end, we were reminded that it was ok to take your learning objective over more than one lesson. We need to stop rushing through the curriculum. I can't be the only year 2 teacher who is aware of a child who still hasn't grasped a concept, but has no more time to spend on it. Being given permission in the new curriculum  to slow down feels wonderful.

As for assessment, Alison believes that focusing on a rich curriculum, expertly taught, with low threshold, high ceiling tasks and a culture of challenge is much more profitable than focusing on levelling children. They are rigorous about the quality of teaching, rather than the levels the children are at. Yes they have to report ks1 and ks2, but they didn't spend time worrying about sub levels. We need to ask what difference we have made, what value we have added and what it is like to be a child in our school. Formative assessment (assessment for learning) is embedded and although summative assessment can inform, it should not hamper high quality teaching (big agree here!) Like us, they now use the NAHT KPIs, but in a slightly different way. These are aggregated at the end of each year and passed on to the next teacher (how it should be!) Assessments can be triangulated with work in books and will provide a scaled score for parents. Children are at the heart of parent meetings, which makes total sense as they are the ones being discussed. They produce short films where they self assess and these are shown in their learning review conferences. I love this idea and will definitely do this with some of our children on the SEN register as I think it is a great way of adding to case studies. 

If you want to read more about the Wroxham School's assessment policy, it is set out very clearly on their website. 

I could write more and more about the messages from today - and lots more advice was given by Mary about the new framework - but I feel this is enough food for thought for now. You can find out lots of brilliant advice on her informative website and I would highly recommend subscribing to her updates. They save an awful lot of time trawling through educational/social networking sites and are always helpful. 

I apologise for any typos (tired eyes) and will polish this post when I turn on my PC by adding some links, bullet points, bold parts etc (ipad prevents proper posting!!) 

I hope I have done justice to Alison and Mary's key messages. This really is a nutshell and I'm sure another blog post will ensue. 

Update: Amy has blogged! A brilliant read that picks up on lots of things that I had written down - and some things that I had only half written because too many inspirational things were being said! (Amy is clearly much better at multi-tasking.)

Please comment! 

Assessing without levels: part 1

From time to time over the holidays I have been thinking about the problem of assessing without levels. I refer to it as a problem, because it is a change that I know will ultimately be for the better, but it is going to be costly in terms of time. Blood, sweat and tears spring to mind - and to be honest the systems I have seen that look like rearranged versions of APP, of which I have never been a fan, are beginning to bring out my ranty side. Why can't anything ever be simple?

I know that what I need to do is dedicate time and find the right space to having a big think, scribble some notes on paper (I have some very sparse notes so far) and then think some more. During my first ponderings I remembered about an assessment for learning website I cobbled together when I was an AST. It was a good way of sharing practice as well as a place for storing my files. It's a bit dated, but the principles remain the same.

Before I dedicate time to my big think, I want to make sure I'm fully informed of what is currently going on in the world. I am assessment co-ordinator at East Harling, but as with everything else at our school it's not a role that I carry out alone. Next Wednesday I have time with my HT to chew over ideas and what it could look like. I'm not one for re-inventing wheels and simple is good. We have recently formed the Acorn Co-operative Learning Alliance with other local schools and, as my HT suggested, it makes sense to work together on this. The only potential problem is that we should be assessing against our curriculum, and we have devised a curriculum that feels very personal to our school (beyond the statutory curriculum). Do we assess the additional knowledge and skills that we feel are important, or stick with the key objectives in the new curriculum?

I believe that the best way to preserve teacher time and make it meaningful is to involve the children wherever and whenever possible; the freedom in the new curriculum should technically give us time to dedicate to self assessment in a purposeful (as opposed to ad hoc) manner. In reality, we run out of time quickly in primary as there are always other demands on our time and recommendations that we spend additional time on this, that and the other. That said, I have always spent time on self assessment and have become much better at allocating marking response time.

The following documents have / will inform my thinking. As always I would be grateful if you have any more that you could add to the list.

Assessing without levels: preliminary reading list (in no particular order)

DFE info for schools Reforming assessment and accountability for primary schools

Learning ladders 

Big writing- standards for writing 

What others are doing http://assessmentwithoutlevels.com/

No tick boxes (growth mindset) http://classteaching.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/assessment-without-levels-an-opportunity-for-growth/

http://alisonpeacock.net/2013/11/aaagh-not-app-under-new-name/

http://community.tes.co.uk/national_curriculum_2014/b/assessment_without_levels/default.aspx#.U9djZcNecWM.twitter (there is a lot of stuff on the TES from the assessment innovation fund)

Primary curriculum resource pack 

Pupil asset http://www.pupilasset.com/tracking-the-new-national-curriculum.html

Classroom monitor: Assessing without levels   Case studies 

Leading curriculum development I include this as it reminds us what makes an outstanding curriculum - a key part of that assessment cycle!

Sue Hackman- assessment and accountability (thanks @10kmk42 for pointing it out)