1. Developing Formative Assessment
Lord Williams’s School
Thame UK

2. Lord Williams’s 11-18 Comprehensive school 2100 students Split-site
140 teachers
Small town and surrounding villages
Committed to development of teaching and learning

3. How we got started King’s College project (1999)
4 teachers join research project
Whole school launch - September 2000
Gradual spreading of formative practices
Core group expanded

4. Key events
Introduction of Formative assessment as whole school focus for Performance Management
Commitment to AfL as a focus for curriculum development
Review of School Assessment Policy

5. More Key events
Focus Performance Management on different aspects of AfL in successive years
‘Learning to Learn’ group established
Joint training day with ‘partner’ primary schools
Whole staff meeting to celebrate AfL practice

6. Conditions for lasting change
Commitment and enthusiasm of School Senior Managers
Support for peer observation
Meetings focus on learning not admin.
Teachers encouraged to ‘mark’ less and ‘assess’ better
Development of comment banks

7. Lasting change Communication of good practice Sharing of resources
AfL approaches and tasks written into Schemes of Work
Communication with parents
Keep Formative Assessment on the school agenda

8. Challenges Consistency across large teaching body Reluctance to change
Need for internal summative events
External high stakes summative assessment looms
Self-assessment is hard!
How do we capture and keep it?

9. Where next? Response to primary practice
Archive of peer and self-assessment strategies
Video leading practitioners in action
Introduce student self-assessment as focus for Performance Management
Research formative-summative relationship