1. Assessment for Learning

2. Learning outcomes
To appreciate the teacher’s role in planning and assessment for learning
To begin to understand how to make accurate and productive use of assessment
TS 2, TS 6
We make assessments all the time in our daily lives; we make judgements about people or objects and as time goes on we refine those judgements and use that knowledge in future activities or relationships. This occurs naturally and develops our understanding of each other and our environments.
More formal assessments of the kinds most of you will already have encountered are a very different kettle of fish. They often make us feel vulnerable and nervous especially when we are depending on a positive outcome, taking a driving test for example or going for an interview. Yet in schools, where most people would agree that creating these kinds of feelings will have a negative impact on children, assessment of learning has gained increasing prominence in the recent past.
Now I have placed the emphasis on ‘of’ because this is the kind of assessment that usually receives the most attention from outside agencies. Assessment of learning is concerned with judgments based on grades, levels and results and is the measure by which schools, teachers and children are compared to one another-the focus being on accountability.
Assessment for learning however, can, if used effectively, be a really powerful tool in raising achievement.
Schools need to concern themselves with both kinds of assessments.

3. What does assessment do and who is it for?
Effective assessment:
Provides children with feedback and encouragement and fosters the development of self-evaluation skills
Provides teachers with information that in turn informs planning and determines future targets.
Leads to more effective differentiation of learning
Leads to more effective evaluation of learning and teaching
Effective assessment:
Provides children with feedback and encouragement and fosters the development of self-evaluation skills, through on-going formative assessment and collaborative target setting.
Provides teachers with information which in turn informs planning, determines future targets through both formative and summative assessment and appropriate record keeping. It leads to more effective differentiation in their teaching and to effective evaluation of their teaching.
Provides parents with information about their child’s progress and attainment, through ongoing liaison and dialogue between parents and teachers, and through more formal reporting to parents at the end of year.
Provides LAs and the Dcsf with information about standards, which leads to league tables, value added judgements through information gained from statutory tests at the end of key stages, and the information gathered from the impact of specific intervention strategies such as Numeracy Recovery.
From all this it is clear that there are distinctly different outcomes to assessment in schools and this can lead to tensions. British primary school children are the most tested in Europe. By the time a child reaches the age of 7, at the end of Key Stage 1, he or she will have undergone Baseline Assessment, Foundation Stage Profile assessments, and a battery Statutory Assessment Tests including a formal reading task and /or test, two writing tests and two maths tests as a bare minimum. Whilst the KS1 SATs now incorporate a much larger element of teacher assessment, they are still rigorously implemented and moderated at LA level. In most other European countries, children will only just be embarking on their formal schooling at this age.

4. Provides pupils, parents/carers and other professionals with information about their child’s progress and attainment
Provides Local Authorities and the Department for Education with information about standards
The prominence of summative assessment, and I will come to definitions of such terms in a moment, can if poorly managed lead to teaching that is entirely defined by the tests, and this is more so in the later years of KS2 – this can provide a very meagre diet of learning indeed.
Schools need to establish balance, so that formative assessment, or assessment for learning is used to inform and support teaching and learning and summative assessment, or assessment of learning is used to measure outcomes in readiness for future planning.

5. Assessment terms Formative:
On-going, day to day assessment that involves giving immediate verbal and written feedback to children in relation to how well they have fulfilled the learning intentions.
Examples would be, marking alongside the child with shared target setting and pupil self evaluation
Formative – this is the ongoing day to day assessment that involves giving immediate verbal and written feedback to children in relation to how well they have fulfilled the learning intentions. It provides feedback for lesson evaluation and informs future planning. Examples would be day to day marking of work, pupils’ self-evaluations and shared target setting. The success of formative assessment relies on effective planning – clear learning intentions that are shared with the children, appropriate differentiation and regular evaluations. This type of assessment is process based – the skills and processes used during the activity are an integral part of the assessment.

6. Statutory Assessment Tests are an example.
Summative:
This provides a picture of what a child can do in a particular curriculum area at a given time.
Statutory Assessment Tests are an example.
Summative – this provides a picture of what a child can do in a particular curriculum area at a given time. Obvious examples would be Statutory Assessment Tests, or commercially produced tests, as well as tests formulated by the school or class teacher. They generally rely on ‘closed tasks’. This type of assessment is product based – i.e. reliant on the final outcome, answer or product.

7. Diagnostic:
This identifies particular needs of a child and often involves commercially produced materials, e.g. the Renfrew Language Tests. Outside agencies, such as Educational Psychology may also be involved.

8. Moderation:
This enables teachers and others involved in assessment to agree on what is accepted as a particular standard for a level or a grade. It usually involves analysing samples of work against published descriptors for attainment, comparing outcomes, discussing discrepancies, followed by more refined analysis and finally agreement

9. Assessment terms
Criterion referenced – when pupils are judged in relation to criteria or standards that do not depend on other pupil’s assessments
Norm referenced – when pupils are placed in rank order
Ipsative – outcomes of assessment are used to judge pupils against their previous achievements

10. Planning Teaching Recording Evaluating Assessing Reporting
Tracking progress
Planning
Teaching
Recording
children’s achievements
Evaluating
teaching & learning
Now I said earlier that pupils in British schools are the most tested in Europe and yet there is no evidence that increasing the amount testing will enhance learning, or that British pupils perform better as a result of this. There’s a saying that you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it, which translates nicely into the current statutory requirements and climate of accountability through test results.
What you will need to concern yourselves with is ensuring that your assessments are for learning, that any you carry out always inform the next stage in teaching and learning; achieving this is dependent on that process based activity I mentioned earlier.
This is no easy task and requires a systematic approach.
Assessing
children’s learning

11. How to monitor and assess
Learning Objective
Assessment method:
product of learning
process of learning
Monitoring - an overview of learning
Assessment - close examination of learning
As we have already discussed in previous sessions -
One of the keys to successful assessment is sharing your learning intentions, goals, objectives with the children and this in turn is dependent on the quality of your planning.
QCA state that ‘Assessment for learning involves using assessment in the classroom to raise pupil’s achievement. It is based on the idea that pupils will improve most if they understand the aim of their learning, where they are in relation to this aim and how they can achieve this aim (or close the gap in their knowledge).

12. QCA
‘Assessment for Learning involves using assessment in the classroom to raise pupil’s achievement. It is based on the idea that pupils will improve most if they understand the aim of learning, where they are in relation to this aim and how they can achieve this aim (or close the gap in their knowledge)’

13. Strategies for gathering evidence.
We need to find out what children know, understand and need to do in order to make progress.
Observation
Questioning
Pupil self evaluation
Feedback and responses to feedback (including marking)

14. Observation Includes:
Listening to how children describe their work and their reasoning
Watching how they approach a task and interact with others
Recording:
Narrative/free description
Checklist/pre-coded categories
Time sampling/structured description
Observation: Includes listening to how children describe their work and their reasoning, as well as watching how they approach a task and interact with others. This is a particularly useful strategy in FS when children may be busily involved with a variety of planned activities and play situations. E.Y.s practitioners will need to make detailed observations in order to recognise patterns of play and interactions so that learning priorities can be identified. Torrence & Pryor(1998) state that giving children time and space to talk will not only provide evidence of their understanding, but also helps to scaffold learning within the group as they collaborate and question one another about the task.

15. Questioning
Questions need to prompt children into thinking about their own learning strategies and to share them with others
Examples:
How can we be sure that…?
What is the same and what is different about…?
How do you…?
How would you explain…?
What does that tell us about…?
What is wrong with…?
Why is…true?
Questioning needs to be bracketed with observation, McCallum (2000), suggests that ‘Observe, wait, listen, question’, is a useful sequence to follow. For FS children, your questions will reflect what the children are doing in a given context, and should be helping them to reflect on what they have done too.
Questions need to prompt pupils into thinking about their own learning strategies and to share them with others. Examples of questions that are effective in providing assessment opportunities would be:
 How can we be sure that…?
What is the same and what is different about…?
Is it ever/always true/false that…?
How do you…?
How would you explain that…?
What does that tell us about…?
What is wrong with…?
Why is…true?
(QCA characteristics of AfL 2005)
The focus is on using open-ended questions that invite pupils to explore their ideas and their lines of reasoning.
So asking ‘does a plant need water to grow? will provide a teacher with very little information about a child’s understanding, whereas, ‘How do you know what a plant needs in order to grow?’ demands more explanation.

16. An example of assessment
Another example that provides you with responses to written questions. Without the third column, ‘How do I know?’ the assessment information is very limited. All the first two columns tell is that this child can or cannot add the two numbers correctly but in order to find out HOW this child approaches this task and identify possible errors or misconceptions we need to ask more questions

17. Pupil self evaluation
‘…assessment for learning must involve pupils so as to provide them with information about how well they are doing and guide their subsequent efforts. Much of this information will come as feedback from the teacher, but some will be through their direct involvement in assessing their own work. The awareness of learning and the ability of learners to direct it for themselves is of increasing importance in the context of encouraging lifelong learning’
Assessment Reform Group, University of Cambridge 1999
Assessment for Learning : Beyond the Black Box
Pupil self-evaluation-If we are going to share the learning goals with the children, and explain what the success criteria are, then it stands to reason that we should also involve them in self-assessment.
Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box (Assessment Reform Group (University of Cambridge School of Education) 1999
‘…assessment for learning must involve pupils, so as to provide them with information about how well they are doing and guide their subsequent efforts. Much of this information will come as feedback from the teacher, but some will be through their direct involvement in assessing their own work. The awareness of learning and ability of learners to direct it for themselves is of increasing importance in the context of encouraging lifelong learning.’

18. Learning intention and success criteria
We are learning to….
We’ll know we have achieved
this because….

19. Self evaluation: thinking about what happens when we are learning
Choose one or two and add the words of the learning intention:
What really made you think/did you find difficult while you were learning to…?
What helped you (e.g. a friend, the teacher, new equipment, a book, your own thinking) when something got tricky about learning to…?
What are you most pleased with about learning to…?
What have you learnt that is new about …(quote learning intention)?
How would you change this activity for another class/group who are learning to…?
Clarke,S (2005) Unlocking Formative Assessment Hodder Murray
Clarke (2001) suggests that displaying a range of self-evaluative questions for the use in plenary sessions and then modelling possible responses will scaffold their learning in becoming more self-evaluative.
These questions move beyond the ‘what did you think about your work?’ which tends to elicit responses along the lines of ‘I think it is ok/good/neat’ etc.
After a period of modelling, you would select one or two questions, making sure they were linked to the learning intention, and give the children time to respond. The idea is not to have this as an additional writing task, although whiteboards could be used to encourage wider participation.
Peer assessment is another useful strategy – swapping pieces of work to make suggestions for improvement, or to indicate how it has met the learning objective. Looking at anonymous samples first, that do and do not meet the assessment criteria can help children to understand what was required from a task.
Teachers are often surprised by the accuracy of self and peer assessment and this often leads into collaborative target setting. Children are reassured to find that others may be having the same kinds of difficulties as themselves, or that they share the same ideas and this impacts greatly on the development of their self-esteem.

20. Feedback and responses (including marking)
How clear is the feedback?
How do children interpret the feedback?
Strategies:
Prompt an exchange – ‘I’ll tell you one good thing about your work and then I want you to tell me another’
Feedback ‘sandwiches’ – ‘I liked your description of….. because….’
or ‘ That is a powerful persuasive sentence, next time you could also try….to be really convincing’
Ask a question about the work – ‘why did you decide to use pastel crayons for this section of the picture?’
Teachers spend a lot of time marking work and giving feedback, both written and verbal and they recognise that it is an essential factor in helping children to make progress. The impact of the feedback will depend on how far it relates to the learning intentions. A ‘good work’ written as a comment on a child’s writing is pretty meaningless, how good was the work and it what way? Children need to know how they have performed in relation to the learning objectives and what they need to do next to move forward. It is important to keep the comments positive e.g. ‘I liked your description of the Wolf’s appearance and next time you could try telling us how a character feels when they are in danger.’ For some children this would have to be supported by strategies for making this improvement.
Not all pieces of work have to be comprehensively marked – selective marking is sometimes more helpful in moving children forward e.g. focusing on a particular feature such as using capital letters, question marks, paragraphs etc. or to check that key points have been recorded.
If it’s a tick it probably means it’s ok but if there’s lots of writing it means it’s quite bad.
It’s one of my best pieces of work because he said the handwriting is neat.

21. Follow-up
Children should be clear about what is expected – do you want them to practise certain spellings, how/when/where will this be done?
Encourage children to reflect on their work and if targets are set, refer to them in subsequent marking/feedback
SMART targets
It is also important is that there is some kind of follow-up. Ideally, all work would be marked in tandem with the child as research shows (QCA) that oral feedback is more effective than written and targets set collaboratively are more meaningful for the child, but in practice this isn’t always possible. If there is no follow up children soon cotton on to the fact that there is no need to respond to the highlighted areas for improvement and there is no encouragement for the child to reflect on their work.

22. Making assessment effective
Making assessments valid e.g. purposeful real –life assessments such as using coins to give change in numeracy
Making assessments more reliable e.g. establishing criteria and sharing them. Everyone knows what is expected
Making assessments manageable e.g. using other adults in the classroom, involving the children
Validity
Reliability
Manageability

23. Making recording effective
You need to be able to remember:
What’s been learned
How it’s been learned
When it’s been learned
Plan for recording – use a proforma
Develop a ‘shorthand’
Use your records!
So what do we do with all this evidence that we have gathered about observations and targets? We need to have a manageable system of record keeping that is useful, practical and does not generate acres of paperwork.
Most early years settings will have a record of achievement that is ongoing and is shared with and completed by, all the practitioners involved with the child and the parents. This record will include achievements that are concerned with the development of the whole child, so physical, social and attitude developments would be as important as conceptual or ‘academic’ achievements. Sticky labels can be used to flag up significant achievements and stuck onto a painting, model or first attempts at writing, or onto photographs of children involved in practical tasks.

24. Year/Class _____ Subject_________
Learning Objective
Read whole numbers up to 1000
Write whole numbers up to 1000
Partition numbers up to and including 3 digit numbers
Theresa
Up to 100 confidently
Kavita
Richard
Belgin
Christian
Up to 50
Thomas

25. Monitoring or tracking records
Topic: Capacity
Learning Objectives
Tommy
Chantelle
Mitchel
Jessie
Lucy
Jasmine
To be able to estimate capacities using litres
To be able to measure capacities using litres
To be able to compare capacities using litres
Targets
Other forms of record keeping vary from school to school.
Class teachers will need to record targets set for groups and individuals and their outcomes, with clear indicators for future planning.
Lists with symbols indicating that concept has been introduced, is partially understood or fully understood are sometimes used, but to a certain extent are organisational documents. The children’s work, your written feedback, evidence of pupil self-evaluation and recorded observations are more valuable.

26. Monitoring records

28. Assessment records James chose a book independently and
Was keen to show
me the
tractor pictures
James identified
the letter ‘J’ today on
his name card
James joined in
the Hungry
Crocodile song this
morning and took a turn
with the puppet
James played with
the dressing up box
this afternoon
interacting with Ali
being a scary monster
In addition, Baseline Assessments may have to be carried out. This will depend on the LA requirements. Since the Foundation Stage Profile, was introduced in 2003, BA are no longer statutory, but some LAs continue to use them in order to assess pupils on entry to school – they are summative in that they highlight strengths and weaknesses at the start of a school career, and establish a baseline of attainment so that future progress is contextualised. LAs usually produce their own baseline assessments, although some commercially produced ones are available.
The Foundation Stage Profile is completed for all pupils in the final year of EYs settings or Reception Classes. It was designed to assess children against a set of given criteria. It is a framework for summing up knowledge about children that has been gained from on-going observations and assessments throughout the FS, although the process is moderated at local level. Information from the profiles is shared with parents and reported to the LA and Dfes.

29. Assessment records

30. Using your assessment records
Review alongside your evaluation of the lesson
Look for progress or lack of progress
Look for problems or issues
Analyse why mistakes were made
Consider what the children’s learning says about your teaching
Plan the next steps for individuals, groups or the whole class
I want to talk now about target setting. Targets are set by Government, for example their expectations in terms of the number of children who will attain level 4 in English and Mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2; by LAs, as a whole and for individual schools; by schools, for each year group or class; and by teachers for the class, groups and individuals. Much attention is focused on targets, in relation to the outcomes of summative assessments, namely SATs. As I mentioned earlier, this diverts schools and teachers away from the process based assessment activities that we know will raise standards and places heavy emphasis on the magic level 4. For children this can be hugely de-motivating and demoralising, and ironically, for the child, the level they attain at the end of Key Stage 2 does not dictate what will happen at the next stage of their schooling. 40 years ago, when I was transferring from primary to secondary, the outcomes of summative assessment sealed your future educational opportunities – you either went to Grammar School with its focus on academic attainment or Secondary Modern, with its focus on more vocational qualifications.
What it does impact on is the school and LA, and in this ‘top down’ culture, these pressures are transferred to individual teachers and children so that we are not working up from what the child can already achieve, but down from school, LA or Government targets.
There are some key features of target setting, whether these arise from your assessment of groups or individuals, or whether they are set at whole school or LEA level.
They must be realistic – children achieve at different rates, setting a target does not mean that a child will make progress, they have to understand what is expected of them, and the targets have to be based on prior attainment.
They must be manageable – it is all too easy to create additional paperwork and develop complicated systems for recording targets and progress against them.
They must be challenging – children will become de-motivated if targets are too ambitious, but also, if targets are too easily attainable.
They must be shared with children and parents – how else can the children be involved in self assessment and how can parents support their children’s learning unless they are brought into the loop.
I am sure that many of you will be familiar with the idea of SMART targets.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time bound.
It is still depressing for me to see children’s work marked with ‘you need to improve your handwriting’, or ‘learn your times-tables’. These are completely unhelpful for children and consequently are largely ignored.
Targets can be recorded at the end of piece of work, or as Clarke (2005) suggests on individual target cards, or on the wall for group, or class targets, or on flags, or inverted ‘V’s of folded card. These will need to be dated, both for when the target was set and when it has been achieved.

31. Assessing Pupil Progress
APP is a process of structured periodic assessment for mathematics, reading and writing. 
It supports teachers by promoting a broad curriculum and by developing teachers’ skills in assessing standards of attainment and the progress children have made.
It involves 'stepping back' periodically to review pupils' ongoing work and relate their progress to National Curriculum levels, and provides information to help teachers plan for the next steps in children's learning
It enables teachers to track pupils’ progress from Yr 1 to the end of Yr 6

32. Reporting Parents’ consultation evenings End of Year reports
End of Key Stage reporting to LA
Reporting – The evidence that you gather throughout the year will enable you to complete formal reports at the end of each year. The reports may be designed by the LA or the individual school. Various methods are used for completion – some schools purchase programmes for PCs which present a set of statements about attainment in various curriculum areas that can be cut and pasted. There are obvious advantages in terms of time saved, but these are often outweighed by the disadvantages – they limit what can be reported about each child, your observations are defined by what the programme allows you to say. They are impersonal and frequently lead to errors. E.g. he/she mix- ups.
Levels of attainment with regard to the NC only have to be reported at the end of the key stages- some schools report this information every year – is this a good idea? How are we defining the children’s learning when we do this? Some parents find it difficult to accept that all children do not either learn at the same rate as their classmates and do not move up a level every year!
Whatever form the end of year reports take, they should focus on the strengths as well as the weaknesses, they should identify areas of development, they should address the development of the whole child, they should have substantial space for parents to make a contribution and should overall, be positive in tone.

33. Reading
Jaques,K & Hyland,R (2007) Professional Studies Primary and Early years Exeter:Learning Matters Chapter 4
Hayes,D (2004) Foundations of Primary Teaching London: David Fulton Chapter 7
Clarke,S (2005) Unlocking Formative Assessment Abingdon:Hodder Murray

34.
for the following publications:
Self Assessment
Pupils Learning from Teacher’s Responses