Cyp Core 3.1

Research has shown that there is a clear relationship between being part of the process of assessment and pupil motivation. If a child is actively engaged and understands the process of assessment and can see their own progress for themselves, they will feel more motivated to continue to try their best and improve further. The more involved they are, the more their independence and self esteem will grow (ie a child who can clearly see that they have successfully included 4 out of the 5 points of success criteria for a task and is praised for doing so, will feel motivated to try and get all 5 next time). A child who does not feel part of the process or who doesn’t understand it may well lose interest in their learning, adopting a “what’s
the point?” attitude and perhaps then becoming disruptive and disturb other children’s learning around them. It is important, therefore, to involve pupils as much as possible with assessment for learning and to ensure they understand what they are learning and why, and what they need to do in order to achieve. By clearly setting out the learning objectives, and the success criteria they will need to follow in order to achieve them, pupils can see for themselves how well they’re doing in relation to those objectives.

Effective assessment for learning identifies the individual educational needs of all ability children, not just the lower ability, as well as telling them about their own performances and achievements. This in turn allows the teacher to tailor their approach to the specific needs of the child. An example of this is a girl in the higher ability literacy group whose written work was nowhere near as good as her verbal ideas. After effective questioning by the teacher and LSA, it turned out that whilst she clearly understood the learning objectives and what she needed to do to achieve them, she was struggling with her writing and was getting letters and sounds jumbled up and was unable to get onto paper what was in her head. It may well be that she has a mild form of dyslexia, and additional measures have been put in place to help her concentrate (using a sand timer for writing a sentence, using different coloured paper, and sitting somewhere quiet on her own) until further investigation is carried out. This has had a positive effect on her work and she is happy and motivated to persevere through things she finds tough.

Assessment can be used not only to measure ongoing learning, but also to promote learning by teaching pupils how to ask questions as well as answering them.
We regularly emphasise to children that it is OK to ‘have a go’ and get it wrong because it is still an opportunity to learn. If everything was easy and they already knew how to do it, they would never learn anything new. We explain that new learning will always be pitched as a “tip-toe challenge” so that pupils will be excited and motivated to try, whereas if it is too hard and way out of their reach it can have a detrimental effect on their confidence and overall attitude for learning. Teachers can only pitch the way new learning is taught by ongoing assessment for learning and knowing and understanding what their pupils comprehend and are capable
of.

1.e. Assessment for learning is valuable as it contributes towards planning for future learning. It’s not just the teachers who benefit from this, everyone involved in a child’s learning gain valuable information:-

• Teachers – effective assessment for learning enables them to pass on, over time, the responsibility to the child for managing their own learning. If, following assessment, it becomes clear that pupils have not fully understood new learning, then the teacher might well need to alter the following week’s planning so they can re-visit the subject and perhaps teach it in a different way to ensure that it becomes embedded. There is no point in moving on until the children are secure with the current learning. Showing the children how to assess their own work and learning allows the teacher to take a step back and pass some of the responsibility on to them for managing their own learning. If, when introducing a set of new success criteria for, say, the key features of a character profile, we ask the children what actions they could do for each item that would help them to remember them. This gives the children the responsibility to decide what would help them with their learning, and the teacher can then prepare the necessary visual aids ready for the next session.
• Pupils – Pupils should be able to think for themselves and recognise when to ask questions on things they’re not sure of.
The assessment for learning process gives them the opportunity to look at their own work and assess how well they have done. By putting a red or green dot at the bottom of their sheet, they are communicating to the teacher whether or not they are confident with what they have learned or if they would like more practice. This, in turn, allows the teacher to plan the next session accordingly. Looking at success criteria and using it to review their own work will help children to develop their ability to self-assess and allow them to identify for themselves areas in which they have done well, and to recognise where they need to work more
on.
• Teaching assistants – knowing the learning objectives prior to a lesson (ie from the weekly planning), helps support staff to know what they are looking for in pupils’ work and how to question them effectively. Depending on differing needs, the pace of a lesson might need to be altered, so that areas of uncertainty can be re-addressed for less able pupils. In this case, splitting a class into smaller, ability based (based on assessment results), TA led groups might be more beneficial so that the pace and explanation of the task can be adjusted accordingly. Subsequent feedback to the teacher after such sessions will assist with their future planning and whether these children can re-join the main group and move on to new learning.