January 5 th

 What benefits can you see emerging from using Peer and Self Assessment?  What do you see as the likely pitfalls of Peer and Self Assessment?  Have you tried any Peer and Self Assessment? What was the outcome?

Why bother with Peer and Self-Assessment? Pupils are more likely to make progress if they can understand what they are aiming for – the success criteria. Peer and Self-Assessment will help students to develop a deeper understanding of what makes a good piece of work - so they will be more able to achieve that level of work.

Why bother with Peer and Self-Assessment? Peer Assessment will help students to work collaboratively and share ideas. These skills are valuable in their own right, but they also help students to develop a deeper understanding of a topic or concept.

Why bother with Peer and Self-Assessment? Self-Assessment will help students to develop a sense of independence and self-evaluation. Peer assessment allows students to talk on their own level and discuss work in a way that they understand. This type of feedback can be easier to grasp and act upon than advice offered by an adult. Peer assessment can save teacher time by lightening the assessment workload.

Pupils do not become self-evaluative overnight. The development of peer and self- assessment takes time, planning and patience. To develop an effective scheme of peer and self- assessment the following need to be in place: Laying the Foundations:

Laying the Foundations: Learning objectives and the success criteria must be made explicit and transparent to pupils. This will help to ensure that pupils are able to identify when they have met some or all of the success criteria.

Laying the Foundations: Sharing learning objectives and success criteria must be a regular feature of lessons and become an integral part of reviewing learning rather than a ‘bolt-on’ activity.

Laying the Foundations: Students need to be shown what good work looks like. They then need to be shown why it is good. Then they need to shown how to achieve a similar standard.

Laying the Foundations: Pupils need to be taught the skills of collaboration in peer assessment. Students will not simply collaborate and assess each other in a compassionate and constructive fashion. It is a skill to be developed and nurtured.

Laying the Foundations: In order to exemplify and explain the above, teachers have to be effective modellers who can show their students what good work looks like, how to produce such work and how to evaluate and feed back on pieces of work in an independent and effective fashion.

In short, to develop peer and self assessment in the classroom, teachers will need to: – plan peer and self assessment opportunities in lessons – train pupils over time to assess their own work and the work of others – explain the learning objectives and success criteria for each task – frequently and consistently encourage pupils’ self- reflection on their learning – guide pupils to identify their next steps.

 Make use of some of the suggestions given in this booklet  Identify some opportunities for peer and self-assessment  Make peer and self-assessment an item on a Faculty or Departmental Meeting  Set peer and self-assessment as a PMR target  Make peer and self-assessment a focus of a coaching cycle  Arrange to observe a lesson with peer and self- assessment as a focus  Arrange for some mentoring in peer and self-assessment Possible Next Steps: