Today I attended an assessment for learning (AFL) training session. I have learnt how important formative assessment is in the classroom and some of the different strategies that can be used in order to make sure all children are making progress throughout the lesson. Formative assessment is the assessment which occurs during the lesson with the learner in order to move the learner forward and make immediate progress. Some of the strategies I am going to take away from the training session and utilise into my classroom practice are: Clear learning objectives and success criteria: I have learnt that learning objectives need to be very precise and clear so children and teachers are very clear about what should be achieved by the end of the lesson. By giving children manageable steps of your expectations in the success criteria, it helps children achieve your intentions for the learning objective. This could be made more interactive by allowing children to contribute towards creating the success criteria in order to help them take more control of their own learning. (TS2: be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes; encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work and study) Live marking: I would like to start doing live marking in the classroom as firstly, it eases up time spent marking after a lesson has occurred. It is also a good formative assessment strategy as it allows me the chance to immediately help children who might be struggling and not realising allowing me to give individual feedback whilst the concept is relevant to them- rather than marking after a lesson when it becomes more passive and allows little time for improvement. (TS6:make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress ; give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback.) Open-ended, higher-order questioning: This was set as a challenge for me by my mentor and after this session, I can see its effectiveness. Asking these questions can prove what children have learnt and also can scaffold children on to a harder activity. This can also be used for lower ability children by encouraging higher order thinking but perhaps answers would be tailored to be more closed. This also raises critical thinking skills and activities could be done throughout the lesson as starters or as breaks during the learning. Some of the activities include odd-one out activities, starting from the answer first to work out the question would be and statement questions to discuss and debate. (TS2: be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes; be aware of pupils’ capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these). Peer assessment: I learnt that children can learn best from each other as often their use of language is more relevant than the teacher’s. If children are trained properly to give constructive feedback to their peers, it can be an effective tool for assessment for learning. A good and positive method of this could be the 3 stars and a wish idea in which children say three positive things that their peer has done and gives one piece of advice for their peer to improve on. (TS6:make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress ; give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback.; TS2: guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging needs). I now understand that assessment for learning is essential in the classroom and happens most effectively when it is immediate and tailored to each individual child. It is much more effective to progress short-term learning than summative assessment as it allows the teacher to scaffold the learning onwards or clarify small misconceptions. (TS2; be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes ; be aware of pupils’ capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these.) Marking each individual child’s books after the lesson can be time consuming and often, children rarely get the chance to go back and recap their work and learn from their mistakes so to have strategies such as in-lesson peer marking or live marking can help to support learners and help them to improve their work. (TS6:give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback) . Assessment for learning is also important as it helps the teacher assess where each child is in their learning which can help to inform the next set of learning. (TS2: be aware of pupils’ capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these). If the challenge is particularly difficult and there are a few children struggling on a particular one, it may be useful to provide a help station, either from the teacher or a teaching assistant, acting as a live intervention so that children can dip in and out of support during the lesson. (TS8: deploy support staff effectively; TS2: encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work and study). I also want to encourage a supportive classroom culture where children feel that is okay to make mistakes and that these provide us with new learning. Having high-order questions can support this, where there is no right or wrong answer, just discussion. In school, children have sentence stems such as “I would like to add to your previous point” or “I disagree because” hanging from the ceiling so that children are scaffolded and supported to think more deeply and discuss positively and appropriately. (TS2: guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging needs; One mistake that I have been learning at school is I often find myself giving out empty feedback to pupils and say things such as “that’s good” but fail to offer any constructive feedback. Instead, I will start saying “that’s good, however, I think you could improve your work by doing this”. This could be used a very powerful scaffolding tool to guide pupils on to stretch and challenge work, allowing children to achieve their full potential during the lesson. (TS6: give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback; TS2: be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes). Focused next steps to impact on your progress or the progress of the children in your care: Stop giving out redundant feedback and make sure feedback aims to clarify misconceptions and progresses children on with their learning to provide stretch and challenge. (TS6: give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback.) Use live marking and peer assessment to support learners immediately rather than after the learning takes place. (TS6: give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback; make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress ; TS2: guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging needs; encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work and study). Encourage a supportive and constructive classroom culture where children feel safe to make mistakes Plan in some high-order questions into each lessons to scaffold learning. Practice using critical questions throughout the learning such as “how might you improve your learning” etc. (TS2: be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes) Make sure learning objectives and success criteria actively aim to produce the best outcomes from pupils and make sure success criteria is explained clearly to pupils and repeated throughout the lesson. (TS2: be accountable for pupils’ attainment, progress and outcomes) All Stories