1. Transforming Religious Education Assessment: Findings and recommendations AREIAC Conference Date 18 th November 2010

2. Add presentation title to master slide | 2 The big picture  Assessment in RE is weak  Issues of manageability and status  Teacher lack of confidence and confusion  Very limited CPD

3. Add presentation title to master slide | 3 BUT  Are problems mainly/partly the result of over-complex, unclear assessment language/levels etc which need further improvement? BUT, if so do we now have a major capacity/authority problem?

4. Add presentation title to master slide | 4 The basic findings: Primary

5. Add presentation title to master slide | 5 The basic findings: Secondary

6. Add presentation title to master slide | 6 The problems  Pupils don’t know how well they are doing  Tasks not pitched appropriately  Little evidence of exemplication material in use  Judgements about pupil attainment often very inaccurate - yielding unreliable data - affecting self-evaluation  Levels rarely used in planning – therefore work not building on prior learning

7. Add presentation title to master slide | 7 Digging deeper – key questions  How significant is the relative strength of assessment at Key Stage 4 – are there lessons to learn or is GCSE a different animal?  What is the real ‘ontological/mythological status’ of levels and sub-levels? Dog/Tail issue?  What have levels ever done for you? Do levels get in the way of developing effective assessment?

8. Add presentation title to master slide | 8 What does good assessment look like?  Yr 2 Divali  Yr 5 Creation Myths  Yr 8 Buddhism

9. Add presentation title to master slide | 9 So, what works?  Making assessment an integral part of the learning process – part of the narrative  Pupils playing an active part in determining the why, how and what of assessment  Keeping the assessment criteria simple and generic – trusting (primary?) teachers understanding of pupil progress

10. Add presentation title to master slide | 10 A skill-based approach to attainment and progress (with thanks to Rose and Chater) Pupils improve in RE by getting better at:  identifying questions and defining enquiries  carrying out and developing enquiries by gathering, comparing, interpreting and analysing a range of information, ideas and viewpoints  presenting findings, suggesting interpretations, expressing ideas and responses and developing arguments  using reasoning, critical thought and reflection to evaluate their enquiries

11. Add presentation title to master slide | 11 Questions  Are there any really good examples of levels being used effectively?  What are the key triggers for this effectiveness?  Do we need a more direct description of what it is we want pupils to get better at?  Would a set of more generic levels (crossing a range of enquiry based subjects) be more helpful espc in primary  Should ‘learning from’ and personal response etc be seen as an important part of the learning process rather than something to be assessed?  Has HMI got the analysis about the need to move to 1AT (called ‘religious education’) wrong?