New Post: The Big Daddy: Wrestling With Assessment in the New KS3

5/8/2014

OK, so I am not even going to make the pretense of being brief here! The attached document (below) outlines my current thinking about how we might make assessment work in a whole school context. As suggested by the title, this has been something of an epic struggle and I am pretty sure I haven't got it right, however I hope that it might at least spark some discussion.

I would like to make mention again however of the excellent work being done by Michael Fordham at http://clioetcetera.wordpress.com/ on this issue which has been crucial in forming many of my ideas.

As ever, all thoughts and comments are appreciated!

5 Comments

@thisiseducation

5/8/2014 10:50:23 pm

Alex,
A thoroughly impressive post. I have been wrestling with this issue too, although by no means to the same extent! The separating of Attainment and Progress is an interesting idea and the example you provide with indicative content shows clearly how this would work.
I have been working on creating a new model for KS3 assessments (to measure attainment) and divide into 'Standard, Skilled, Advanced and Expert', with specific criteria for Knowledge, Analysis, Interpretation and SpaG. This is much less involved than the examples you provide but has similar principles. Reading about your has given me confidence in mine, so thank you!
What steps have your colleagues in other subjects made towards this issue? Clearly we need to make assessment, recording and reporting at KS3 meaningful, as for many years meaning has been seriously lacking as you say.
Many thanks
Simon

Alex Ford

5/9/2014 04:58:57 am

Thanks for the comments Simon. Your approach sounds very interesting. I would love to have a look at what you have been doing.

In terms of other departments, I think most have assumed they will carry on using level descriptors from KS3. At the moment, I think the best case would be to have a transition year next year and plan a really detailed assessment and progression system based on a fundamental rethinking of mastery models of progress and tied to specific content, rather than rushing to create something for 2014. I think departments with a good plan however should present their thinking to SLT and hopefully get some movement on this. My school is certainly looking to report Progress and Attainment seperately now.

@1267helen

5/26/2014 12:17:12 pm

Hello there,

Thanks for so many interesting posts about the future of assessment. I attended your workshop at the Historical Association conference, which inspired me to further wrestle with the problem of assessment. I am moving back to the UK this summer after teaching 8 years in an international school under the IB MYP (Middle Years Programme – equivalent of KS3 and 4 put together). We as a staff have similarly grappled with assessment – which has seemed cumbersome and impenetrable at times, but I have definitely noticed some positives which perhaps could be added to the discussion.

Also, coming from a school with over 60 different nationalities and cultural/parental expectations when it comes to assessment, we have offered workshops for parents at the start of each school year to explain how assessment works in our school – which have been well-received. This seems to have gone a long way to quell the usually-baying cries for a percentage or a letter grade at every available turn.

In thinking about this, it is relatively easy to say what is wrong with any form of assessment, but incredibly hard to put forward one that is better/right. You and Michael Fordham (in the TH supplement) have both offered really interesting ideas. It seems worth saying that History is complicated, so really assessing what students do when they 'do' history, is never going to be easy!

The MYP suggests 4 criterion-referenced areas to be assessed:
A: Knowing and Understanding (which could be used to assess both factual and conceptual knowledge, as well as clarity/development of descriptions and explanations)
B: Investigating (which could include writing a research questions, looking at scope and method and creating an action plan for answering the question, selecting relevant information from sources and answering the question)
C: Thinking Critically (Assessing sources, analysing information, creating an argument)
D: Communicating
Of course, i) this is an artificial division – we all know that all these things intertwine in progressing in history. ii) if this were it, it would smack of the multiple attainment targets of yore, but these criteria can be selected from, combined in different ways, and used to help teachers to write their own task-specific rubrics.

So what did I like about it?

- We weren’t re-inventing the wheel every time we wrote a task-specific rubric, we could use the descriptors for each criterion as a starting point (this would work a bit like your ‘gold standard’ if I have understood you...)

- When feeding back to students, you were able to let them know which areas you were focusing on, and provide something a bit like a graphic equaliser to allow them to see where their strengths and areas to improve were. Even without giving a grade, this allowed them to immediately see their feedback, as well as read it.

- Of course, progress wasn’t linear (as you have mentioned, different concepts have a different difficulty to different students when connected to different content) – but this didn’t matter as it was expected by all (teachers and parents alike [especially after the start of year workshops]) and at the end of the course an overall judgement was made using, yes, assignments, but also a teacher’s overall knowledge of a pupil and their ability taking all areas into account.

- Standardisation across the department was incredibly important, and helped us all develop our thinking about progression, as well as our future tasks and rubrics.

It was much maligned by some staff, but I found that, in general, it worked and enabled students to really identify where their strengths lay in history (giving them that triumphant feeling of achievement), as well as showing them both where and how to improve. Keeping a portfolio of work in the classroom also helped, as students were able to go back and look at old work, and targets both they and I had suggested, to help them progress when a similar skill was the focus.
These are just initial rambled thoughts, but what a great and interesting discussion for history teachers to be having. I'm looking forward to seeing where the next school year (back in the UK) takes us in a post-levels world.....
Thanks again for firing up the debate!

Alex Ford

5/28/2014 03:12:51 am

This sounds like an inherently sensible approach to assessment. I think keeping it as straightforward and teacher-led as possible is crucial. Your model therefore has a lot to recommend it.

As soon as we start chopping progress up into little chunks and steps I think all is lost. Good luck applying this back in the UK next year. I would be interested to see how you get on.

lia clark link

7/23/2014 11:51:04 pm

it' good and it is relatively easy to say what is wrong with any form of assessment, but incredibly hard to put forward one that is better/right. You offered really interesting ideas.

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