Implementing a New Assessment Model

My last (very long) blog on Assessment introduced the ideas I’ve been exploring over the past year to introduce a new approach to assessment that complements our improved curriculum.

This past half term we have focused on introducing our assessment strategy with KS3, Year 7-9. We had a vision for the half term to work on building a ‘narrative’ of student learning throughout a topic. Reflecting on this past half term it has been really interesting to see how this is progressing, as a team we have definitely taken strides forward in achieving our goal of a more holistic and comprehensive assessment system. When looking in progress books there is a visible build up of work demonstrating student understanding, rather than the previous collation of test papers. When we reach our first long term assessment point this coming term it will be interesting to see how well our ‘Making the Learning Stick’ strategies have worked.

What has been really reassuring is the things I was anticipating to be our next steps have been exactly as expected and fortunately there have been no surprises!

Our next steps in the coming half term will be focusing on the following:

Tier 1 Assessment – The in class diagnostic assessments we use to teach responsively. The aspect teachers have compete autonomy over deciding the design of, for example, mini whiteboards, verbal questioning, and ‘hinge’ questions. We will also be exploring the BEST resources. Designed to diagnose preconceptions and response activities to support overcoming them.

Tier 2 Assessment – The in class assessments that are used consistently across the year group to directly assess Age Related Expectations. These will be our main focus to develop:

• Consistency in narratives from class to class. This half term has been very much an experiment and a number of our resources used we have worked as delivering the topics.
• Holistic conclusions on student progress in a topic. Having experimented with how a narrative of student learning forms we now have evidence that we can draw conclusions from. A key focus will be on how we standardise our conclusions and ensure consistency.
• Assessments that cover the breadth of learning in a topic. To create an effective narrative that we can make evidence-informed judgements from we need to be thorough in mapping the assessments to the Age-Related Expectations.
• Providing feedback in a timely and workload friendly manner. This enables misconceptions to be addressed and enhance student understanding in a topic more effectively. An obvious conclusion, but shifting from an end of topic only assessment with feedback all in one go, to a model of ‘bite-sized’ feedback and response takes time to adjust to and build as a habit.
• Interpreting MCQs. Developing strategies to interpret the wrong answers to MCQs and use these to address misconceptions and misunderstandings.

How we are addressing these things this half term:

• We have shared model examples from the first half term on what a narrative might look like. With the aim of refining assessment for the topic is presented.
• Implementing a feedback sheet to support making holistic conclusions and providing feedback that is workload friendly.
• Continuing to review and develop resources to support assessment of the topics being taught.
• BEST resources have been mapped to the topics being taught and have Teacher Guides to assist trialing and implementation with classes.
• Shared explanations on how MCQs have been constructed and examples on how to interpret class outcomes.