Classroom practice

Provide high-quality feedback

• Adjust feedback to consider social factors.
• Use model work to scaffold self-assessment.
• Strengthen peer-assessment activities.

By trying this activity, you will...

Learn how to provide high-quality feedback, by:

• Appreciating that pupils’ responses to feedback can vary depending on a range of social factors (e.g. the message the feedback contains or the age of the child).
• Scaffolding self-assessment by sharing model work with pupils, highlighting key details.
• Thinking carefully about how to ensure feedback is specific and helpful when using peer- or self-assessment.

If this is successful, you will see...

• Pupils providing more elaborate and sophisticated responses to questions.
• Pupils are able to respond to questions well as they are appropriately pitched.

Practise...

Adjust feedback to consider social factors

For a class you teach, consider how you should adjust your feedback to account for a range of social factors. For example:

• If you are using subject-specific vocabulary, are you sure that the individual pupil receiving the feedback has a secure understanding of the vocabulary? If not, use the term and paraphrase/use an example to illustrate. For example,_ “Can you re-do questions 1, 2 and 3 to show you have understood what a prime number is? Remember, a prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself and 1.”_
• Feedback should be kind, specific and helpful. Have a look at your recent written feedback – is it kind? Is it specific? Is it helpful?

Use model work to scaffold self-assessment

Developing pupils’ self-assessment skills can help them become more self-regulated and effective learners.

For a lesson you have coming up, think about an activity for which you could provide an example which does and does not meet the assessment criteria. You could use work from previous pupils or develop your own. You should highlight the important features (strengths or weaknesses).

Looking at different responses can support pupils to understand what the approaches are that they can take to the task. It is very important that there are success criteria attached to the model so that pupils are able to judge it (with your support).

You could also do this activity in ‘real time’ using a visualiser, using it as a way to model your thinking as you work.

Strengthen peer-assessment strategies

For a lesson you have coming up, plan in a peer-assessment activity. Write a set of success criteria that the pupils will use to mark each other’s work.

In the lesson, mark one piece of work together as a class using the success criteria to model its use.

In your notepad

Reflect on your practice:

• which idea(s) for practice did you try?
• what did you do?
• what happened?
• what will you do next?