Dubai Lead Meet Rachael Edgar 24 th February 2015 Assessment after Levels “Stealing hubcaps!” Assessment after Levels “Stealing hubcaps!”

Big ideas? “Study fewer things in greater depth, so a deeper understanding of central concepts and ideas can be developed. Assessment should focus on that” Tim Oates YearTermTopicCore knowledgeCore skills Curriculum matters! Debate it!

Cultural literacy is strongly correlated with academic achievement ! Massachusetts Miracle! Ed Hirsch- Matthew effect Cultural literacy is strongly correlated with academic achievement Breadth of knowledge is the single factor within human control that contributes most to academic achievement and general cognitive competence

Blocking V Interleaving

( 9 Gifts!

Possible whole school assessment model- English Dept example

ThresholdGCSE New LevelGCSE curre nt Generic marking criteriaLevel of learning Developing D-G Limited conceptual understanding. Students are beginning to develop ideas but this is incoherent to the task. SURFACE Embedding 4-5 B-C Single idea. Recall and reproduction. Students are embedding their ideas and understanding, though this may be disconnected. Secure A-B Many ideas. Can apply skills and concepts. Students are securing more knowledge and show an understanding of several key ideas DEEP Confident A Can link and relate ideas. Uses strategies for thinking and reasoning. Students are confident with subject knowledge and are able to link and integrate ideas which show a coherent understanding of the whole. +Excellence 8-97+A* Can extend and apply ideas. Extended thinking. Students are excelling and going beyond their current line of study and are able to rethink their ideas and understanding and approach or apply in a new way. Possible whole school assessment model- History Dept example

ThresholdThreshold knowledgeThreshold skill Excellence + Confident Secure Embedding Developing Within a unit of work (half termly), what is expected, in terms of knowledge and skills, at each of the five thresholds? This, when used with student baseline thresholds, allows teachers to plan for progression within their teaching – with the aim being that all students are aspiring towards excellence. Students know what they need to do to improve. Assessment: Clear progression and feedback Assessment:

Exceptional progress Good progress Expected progress Making less than expected progress +2 Baseline +1 0 Using the thresholds for each assessment, where is the student relative to their baseline threshold? In terms of tracking progress and reporting to parents we can look at how students are performing, relative to their baseline threshold: Working below their baseline threshold– Making less than expected progress Working towards the lower end of their baseline threshold – Making expected progress Working towards the top end of their baseline threshold – Making good progress Working above their baseline threshold or at the top of or beyond the excellence threshold – Making exceptional progress. Allocate students a baseline using Midyis/CATs.Report to parents only sharing progress in each subject against the baseline, remove gradings from reports/ student work? Debate worth having? Reporting progress 1- DHS model

Reporting progress 2- Canon’s model

Does our curriculum allow for spaced retrieval and interleaving practice? What are the ‘big ideas’ we want to assess? Knowledge and skills What is our assessment constitution? How will we assess? How does this fit in with a whole school model? Have we got task specific mark schemes for key pieces of work? Formative comments only on key pieces of work? Break culture of ‘I’m a 6a’. Build in time for students to respond to feedback- D.I.R.T Do we have ‘real work’ progress files- ‘benchmarks of brilliance’- compare with schools in similar contexts? Have we done a pilot of our assessment model? Questions so far? Should we set targets for end of KS3? Against growth mind set? Should we link thresholds to future GCSE grades? Should we remove grading from student’s work? Report to parents with a RAG rating only? How would we build progression within thresholds? ‘Embedding’ in Year 8 should be more challenging than ‘Embedding’ in Year 7? How would we quality assure across different subjects? i.e. how so we ensure ‘Confident’ in English is as rigourous/challenging as ‘Confident’ in Maths? Checklist for Schools/Depts