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Video transcript

Presenter intro: Harry Fletcher-Wood

Every lesson teachers make lots of decisions that have an impact on what they teach and what pupils learn. They make decisions about whether a pupil has understood something or if they need to go back and reteach it. In order to ensure that we make good decisions and act in ways that will have the most impact on pupils’ learning, we need to think carefully about what we assess and how we assess it. Designing and delivering formative assessment can help teachers make better decisions.

Presenter main

A great way of understanding what formative assessment is, is to consider the definition that Paul Black and Dylan William gave in their influential work ‘Inside the Black Box’. And assessment is formative if it leads a teacher to make a better decision about next steps. Effective formative assessment allows teachers to develop an understanding of how learning is going and to make decisions about how they’ll adapt their teaching. This is different from summative assessment, which is designed to demonstrate what pupils have learned. By the time that teachers get information back from summative assessment, it’s often too late to do anything about it. Designing and delivering formative assessment allows teachers to make decisions about how and what they’re teaching as they go.

Perhaps one of the most important decisions that teachers make and will need to make most regularly is this: I’ve taught my pupils something, have they understood it? And are they ready to move on? Formative assessment needs to be carefully designed so that it gives teachers the answers to these important questions. It needs to be linked to the key learning in the lesson.

Here’s one approach that teachers can take when designing formative assessment. First, identify what the most important content in the lesson is. They also need to identify the most likely misconceptions related to it. We want to know if pupils have understood the key content and if they hold any misconceptions that will get in the way. Next, teachers need to design a question that tests for one piece of information at a time, that way you’ll have a better chance of identifying the specific problem that you need to address. Finally, once you’ve designed a question it’s really important that you test it out, for example with your mentor, to check that it tells you what you want to know. Sometimes we come up with what looks like a great question, but when we test it out, it doesn’t tell us the information that we need. For example, you might want to know whether a pupil can add tens and units together. Say you decided to give them a word maths problem like this: Adam has 10 apples in his basket and puts two more in. How many apples does he have? The problem with a question like this is that it requires pupils to know how to read as well as how to add tens and units. If they get the answer wrong, how are you going to know if the problem lies with their ability to add up or with their ability to read it? It could be the pupil’s understanding of addition is secure. In this instance, the teacher won’t be able to use this information to decide whether or not they’ve understood enough about addition of tens and units to move on. So it won’t be effective formative assessment.

As well as designing formative assessment carefully, teachers also need to think about how to deliver it. Pupils need a positive learning environment in order to feel comfortable making mistakes. It’s helpful to explain to pupils why you’re giving them an assessment and that you want to know if they’ve understood what you’ve taught them and if they’re ready to move on. In an EYFS setting, the assessment may take the form of a one-to-one conversation with a pupil. Having a strong relationship of trust and mutual respect will provide an important basis for this.

One further point is that while formative assessment is good at capturing what pupils have understood in the moment, it’s not always the most reliable way of telling you how secure learning is. A correct answer might be a lucky guess, or it might be pupils have performed well because the content is fresh in their minds. It’s quite possible that pupils will have forgotten by the next lesson. Teachers will need to go back to content to check whether the pupils have a secure and lasting understanding. Formative assessment is most useful for identifying pupils’ misconceptions, and then knowledge gaps.

When designed and delivered well, formative assessment can help show teachers how learning is going and help them make good decisions about what to do next.

Presenter exemplification framing

In the next example, you’ll see a model of planning formative assessment. As you watch pay particular attention to the following:

• Plan a formative assessment task that is linked to the lesson objective
• Think ahead about what would indicate understanding

Exemplification: Sarah Cottingham and Paula Delaney

COACH (SARAH COTTINGHAM): What’s the learning goal of this lesson?

ECT (PAULA DELANEY): To form the lowercase letter M.

COACH: Let’s think about this in a bit more detail. What key knowledge and skills do you want pupils to achieve in this lesson?

ECT: I want them to know how to accurately form the letter by starting at the top of the line, using straight lines, starting the curve two thirds up the straight line, ensuring the two curves are the same size and then adding that flick at the end. And that’s going to feed forward when they do cursive handwriting as well. I want them to be able to write slowly and check for accuracy, and I want them to be able to say or think the key steps for forming the letter as they write.

COACH: What tasks could you get them to do to show that they’d understood?

ECT: Well, they’re going to be forming the letter M and I can check their independent practice. But I also want to check that the class can articulate the steps that they actually need to take. This is what’s going to help them in the future. So they’ll have some useful prompts, like I need to remember to start at the top of the line. So I could ask a series of questions that I’ve carefully scripted to check that they have that knowledge.

COACH: What question would you ask to assess then each piece of the key learning?

ECT: Well, I can turn a lot of my key knowledge and skills into questions. And so instead of to be able to start forming the letter at the top, I could say, where should I start when I’m forming my letter or their questions are, what should I take care of when drawing my downward line? Where should I start the first curve? And what do I need to remember about the second curve? And why do we need to take my time?

COACH: So let’s look at this question a bit more detail when you ask, what do I need to remember about the second curve? Could you be more specific.

ECT: How about what size should the second mentioned be?

COACH: Great. That narrows down the potential answers. Now let’s test out this question. Why do I need to take my time? I imagine that pupils could say something like, to take care or, so I can be proud of my work, but you’re trying to check that they understand that they should be accurate. If they said that they needed to take their time or so they can be proud of their work, would that tell you that they needed to be accurate?

ECT: Not really.

COCAH: And would it tell you that they didn’t know the importance of being accurate?

ECT: No, because both answers could work.

COACH: So how could you refine the question to make sure that the answer you get tells you what you want to find out?

ECT: I could give them a couple of statements and ask them to choose which one is correct. So for example, I could say, is it better to write lots of letters quickly or to write one letter accurately?

COACH: That’s a good idea. Only one of those answers is right. And the right answer being accurate tells you what you want to find out.

Presenter key ideas

In this video, we’ve explored the importance of formative assessment and provided some practical strategies for designing it. Before we finish, take a moment to read over the key ideas that the video has covered. Which ideas do you think the example illustrated best?

• Making use of formative assessment
• Planning formative assessment tasks linked to lesson objectives
• Thinking ahead about what would indicate understanding (e.g. by using diagnostic questions to pinpoint knowledge gaps)

Presenter summary

The better teachers know what their pupils have understood or misunderstood the more they’ll be able to adapt their teaching in response. Formative assessment helps teachers make better decisions.