Whole School CPD - Week 5 - How do we apply formative assessment in our own subject areas?

It would be very remiss of our CPD platform this term not to review how each department is considering the theme of formative assessment and to showcase the expert application of strategies. It is with great pleasure that I am able to present to you all this week a plethora of worked examples from Mangotsfield itself, thank you to every department who kindly sent their contributions through. It is hoped that seeing said strategies 'come to life' will allow us to greater understand their potential and make the transference between subject areas swift.

One note, I will be using 'one universal language' when referring to the names of these strategies. When our students return to us in September, we wish to use the same terms for each strategy across the school so as to avoid confusing our students. We therefore will not be referring to these as 'assessment' tasks in lessons; that is bound to overwhelm them. The emphasis should be on  utilising these as fun, enjoyable learning activities so when using these strategies we want to sell them as low stakes, captivating and appealing.

So what was each department asked? 
1. What is your current departmental model for formative assessment? 
2. Which new strategies are consistently used and which are you looking to embed? 
3. What worked examples are you able to share?

So let's see them all in action, first up English:

Within our department, concretely embedded into our curriculum are three key strategies; 

a) Kagan structures (https://www.kaganonline.com/) are built into all SOLs students are given lots of opportunities to vocalise their responses both to the teacher and to each other. This gives the teacher the ability to move around the class and give instant feedback to student response. 

b) Low-stakes quizzes are used on a daily basis. They give the teacher the ability to gauge the extent to which students have a handle on any given text, future lessons and starters are planned accordingly – i.e. Q’s on a poem – if students struggle then a future lesson re-teaching that poem is planned. 

c) Purple book assessments occur on a fortnightly basis. Students complete an extended piece of writing. Following this teachers mark and give students a broken down targeted task. As per Daisy Christodolou these tasks focus on teaching a component skill of the bigger picture task (https://daisychristodoulou.com/2019/05/what-is-mastery-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/).

Following on from previous weeks CPD, we have as a department identified three further strategies to embed; Barrett's Taxonomy, Retrieval Grids and Analysis Grids (please see Johnny's excellent blog post on Barrett's Taxonomy is you are interested in some further reading, its a game changer - https://mangotsfieldmoments.blogspot.com/2020/06/barretts-taxonomy-no-not-blooms-guide.html).

Ryan has produced examples of Retrieval Grids that are based on the key poems Year 10 need to know for their exam. The competition element, to ensure these are received positively by students, is through the use of a points score system, based on Kate Jones idea of how long ago students must retrieve the knowledge from.

Now for Maths:

In Maths we routinely use a range of strategies to help us assess students formatively. In every lesson you can see evidence of Questioning (Hinge, Diagnostic, DQs) which to us is a very powerful tool that allows us to drill down, expose and manage misconceptions, review prior learning and pave the way for next steps. We also regularly utilise the use of whiteboards with our questioning activities to help drive and adjust the lesson around student responses.

Weekly Skills (Diagnostic) are more recently used by some teachers for some groups - these allow teachers and students to understand where the gaps are in prior (and current) learning. Question Level Analysis is used after summative tests to help ‘fill gaps’/address misconceptions, see example opposite.

Moving forward as a department we have identified the following areas for development. We wish to:

1. Adapt ‘Variation Theory’ tasks to become more strategic with results recorded as raw scores. 

2. Use (Short Low Stakes) Quiz Assessments.

3. Produce exit slips/questions/summaries.

Please do approach the Maths department directly if you are interested in examples of Hinge Questions that they use and exit slips that they are currently working on producing.

Onto Science:

The Science department routinely provides written feedback to our 'Explain Tasks' via dot marking and followed by Try Now, on average every eight lessons. Please see John's post from 2019 on this initiative (https://mangotsfieldmoments.blogspot.com/2019/01/dot-marking-approach-in-science.html). Verbal feedback and/or self-assessment occur routinely every lesson. This occurs through the following range of strategies:

1. Low Stakes Quizzes, self-marked with a raw score.
2. “We do it” (I do, We do, You do) moments following teacher science explanations e.g., Think-Pair-Share, multiple choice, true or false, one word answers.
3. Scaffolded writing tasks, chunked into a supportive scaffold using Bloom’s Taxonomy - students can track the difficulty level more easily. See the examples below for guidance students receive for how to structure their answer. This is often followed with a modelled answer by the teacher. For anyone interested in exploring the 'Success in Science' policy further then please contact the department directly.
4. Plenary - Students self-assess mark and correct work using teachers answers to scaffolded writing, followed by “Today I have achieved…” Reflection discussion.

As we review our current formative assessment strategies, we have identified the need to increase the level of interleaving of older content that occurs in our low-stakes quizzes as well as clarifying strategies for revision lessons and activities.

Into Humanities and first up RS:

Opposite are examples of the formative strategies we use routinely at the start of all lessons. In the case of the low-stakes quizzes, the intention is to check recollection of key knowledge that has been gradually built up across the unit, which then helps to consolidate the bigger picture and identify misconceptions and/or gaps.

The image task, similar to concept mapping, links to prior learning that has taken place in the unit and draws in the new learning they will be exploring, so if there are issues this is something to revisit to avoid faulty learning of the new information. 

After information has been introduced to the students we will often use Kagan Structures to encourage the students to verbalise the information they have encountered. Oracy of the new learning allows for greater 'live observation'. The teacher can move around the room and listen into discussions before each group feeds back ideas which can be further probed. The responses allow for the teacher to establish whether the class are ready to move on and use this information or whether further teacher exposition is required. It may be that shows some students are ready for independent practise while others need further teacher support.  

Moving forward, strategies such as retrieval grids and Cops and Robbers from Kate Jones 'Retrieval Practice' (https://lovetoteach87.com/2019/11/24/retrieval-practice-the-myths-versus-reality/) are the key focus for development and embedding.

Followed by History:

As Kate Jones points out in her book 'Love to teach' (https://lovetoteach87.com/), good practice with formative assessment is to rotate a small collection of strategies for formative assessment so that students become confident with their routine use. For that reason, in History the following strategies are consistently utilised:

1. Five question low-stakes quizzes. 
2. Kagan structures such as All Stand Consensus and Hand Up, Stand Up, Pair Up.
3. Thirty question retrieval quizzes - which are being brought down from KS4 to KS3. These develop over time but only once they have answered every question correctly. We treat this as a competition and get the students to compete against one another. Our centralised tracking system allows for the quick collation of students scores so they can see live in the lesson their progress. When a student becomes aware that they must get all questions right before they can move on, they become more determined and focused to retrieve the core knowledge.
4. Plenary activities that are linked to the driving question to review key learning.

Within our classroom routines we are also known to use Just a Minute and No Opt Out Questioning.  GoogleClassrooms is an key strength, we have been setting all home learning using this virtual platform for this term. Students are provided with feedback on submitted work and we can track their performance. Moving forward, Analysis Grids appeal as a new approach to source interpretation.

And now Geography:

Geography have clearly embedded routines in which all lessons begin with low stakes quizzes, in which past knowledge is retrieved. We are looking to modify these in the new academic year to ensure we pose five questions that not only reflect on past knowledge but draw links to the new learning too. Kagan structures have been part of our departmental expectations for a couple of years now, namely all write round robin and rally table to ensure that students collaborate their discussions.

Within KS4 we consistently use Knowledge Checkers;

focusing on the use of ten questions that ask students to learn core knowledge before its consolidation to an exam question and Concept Mapping to ensure that students become familiar to tier 3 vocabulary. Concept Mapping was used primarily in Year 11 to encourage them to make links between prior knowledge.

Moving forward, our identified strategies as part of our curriculum shake-up will be Retrieval Grids and Analysis Grids. As per the directions in the previous blog post on analysis grids, we are focusing on the skills element of our curriculum as the focal point; this can be graphs, images, diagrams or maps (wouldn't be Geography without a map). Our example opposite shows the use of a complete OS Map with multiple questions designed to probe the source. Having now read Johnny's excellent post on Barrett's Taxonomy, we could tier the questions around the source as such.

We have begun work on both of these, examples are shown opposite. The Retrieval Grids will be used as part of our tracked formative assessment at KS3, alongside a more skills based task, and have been designed around an allocated points system based on the length of time students are being asked to retrieve knowledge from. As we are moving towards a spiral within a spiral curriculum, inspired by the History department, we are often exploring 6-7 themes per term under the umbrella on one continent so it is essential we ensure that students recognise the links between these themes across the years by retrieving it routinely.

So what are MFL working on?

In MFL we test students’ vocabulary by means of a fortnightly test with 10 low stakes questions. These vocabulary tests are directly related to the sections of the knowledge organiser the pupils have been studying for homework that week. Additionally, ‘No Hands Up' questioning aka Cold Call questioning is core to MFL departmental ethos. In this way, we provide students with instant feedback and constantly inform ourselves about the students’ understanding. We also use every speaking and listening activity we do (which occur in almost every lesson) as a means of formative assessment to assess pronunciation and understanding of core concepts and vocabulary. 

As a department, following this terms CPD we are each working on preparing templates in both French and German for the following formative assessment strategies; Hinge Questioning, Retrieval Grids, Say it Better, Just a minute and All Write Round Robin. We hope to have these ready to share soon.

PE have been hard at work:

We are looking to re-write our KS3 SoL including implementing a new tracker to monitor progress against four assessment outcomes. In each block of work/sport, we would look to use one formative assessment strategy to help us assess students against each outcomes.

1. Knowledge and understanding (Could be a low stakes quiz on rules or terminology etc.)
2. Practical application of skills (Visually assess, with verbal feedback)
3. Practical application in competitive context (Visually assess, with verbal feedback)
4. Analysis and evaluation (Questioning)

As a department, we frequently use Kagan Structures within GCSE or theory lessons, generally to share ideas help prepare students to answer exam questions. Alongside this there are 10 question low stakes quizzes, based on areas of weakness highlighted from a department Question Level Analysis.

We are interested in embedding further Google Classrooms to set rules questions for students. The wish is that students will then be more independent at checking their knowledge and understanding against the required assessment outcome.

What are Art planning to do?

Kagan structures play a key role in our project discussions, this creates formative assessment opportunities. Peer, self and teacher written feedback is expected for each project as formative feedback/review to impact progress, quality, refinement. The use of Kagan encourages students to share their ideas, receive that peer support and feedback before moving on to consolidating their designs. Our current review focuses on identifying opportunities for further formative assessment in the margins of our knowledge-rich PowerPoints. Exit cards have been recognised as a further development of strategies for the 2020-21 curriculum.

Health and Social Care are reflecting:

In terms of H&SC formative assessment can be less apparent in a lot of the work we do and that is because 3/4 of the course is coursework heavy. This obviously leads to a lot of independent work using the resources given rather than retrieving knowledge through assessments. However for the 1/4 of the course that is exam based formative assessment will become key, with our particular focus going to be at the start of every lesson when we do this topic. So for example making use of low-stakes quizzes, Challenge Grids, Cops and Robbers from Kate Jones etc in order to build as much knowledge into the long term memory.

A final thought:

THANK YOU! To all departments who have been able to send through their reflections. I am very aware that there are many other examples of good practice out there and that some of our smaller departments have not had the opportunities to meet to discuss. As a collaborative Mangotsfield community, I am sure it goes without saying that if you wish to find out how any of the strategies shared work further then please do contact departments directly.

Moving forward, it is important to spend some time reflecting on how these strategies can be presented via GoogleClassrooms. With the uncertainty that September brings, our use of this virtual platform to consolidate core learning completed in school will be more important than ever. In our final weeks of this term, we aim to marry together these two key priorities to ensure we are in the strongest position possible for blended learning in September.