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  • Support for early career teachers
  • UCL
  • Year 1: First half-term: making productive use of assessment

    • Self-Study Activities

    Review: 10 mins

    Read the Research and Practice Summary on this week’s topic. As you read, reflect on:

    1. the practices that you are already doing well
    2. the practices you are doing some of the time but could do more of/more consistently
    3. the practices you do not use in your teaching yet

    As you work through the activities in this week’s self-directed study session and mentor meeting, aim to both refine and extend what you already do well and to build your skill and confidence in using practices which are not yet a regular part of your teaching repertoire.

    Plan and Theory to Practice: 30 mins

    1. Reflection

    Identify situations in your teaching where you find it especially hard to decide about how well pupils are learning. This difficulty might be related to particular pupils, classes and/or lesson content. Use Rob Coe’s Poor Proxies for Learning, from the Research and Practice Summary above, to reflect on how these ‘proxies’ might be contributing to the difficulties you have in assessing the learning of these pupils.

    Now focus on two or three pupils whose learning you find it difficult to assess accurately. Ask yourself:

    1. What gets in the way of forming a clear picture of their learning?
    2. What forms of assessment might best clarify my understanding of what they know and can do?
    3. How might I introduce particular forms of assessment to develop a clearer picture of their learning?

    Draw on this week’s Research and Practice Summary to help you here.

    2. Independent planning

    Drawing on your reflections (above) and this week’s Research and Practice Summary, develop a plan for how you might gather additional evidence of learning about each of these pupils. The plan may be different for each of the pupils (e.g. for a reluctant writer, it may involve more oral dialogue). You might find it helpful to consider both general strategies for each pupil and specific strategies that you will use in a particular lesson that you will be teaching soon.

    Write your plan and any additional notes or questions in your Learning Log, if you are using one. Bring this to your next mentor meeting for further review.

    Next Steps: 5 mins

    Review the outcomes of your thinking about how to apply assessment practice in the classroom to avoid being over-influenced by potentially misleading factors, such as how busy pupils appear. Add to your Learning Log any additional notes, actions and/or questions arising from this session.

    Be ready to share these reflections and your independent planning on assessment with your mentor in your next meeting with them.