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assessment
GCSE Exams: Keeping a proportionate positive perspective.
Despite the fact that we’ve been running Y11 exams in one form or another for decades, there is always a fairly strong undercurrent in the discourse around the annual exam season characterised by a sense of injustice and unreasonableness. In relation to GCSEs, the following arguments are rehearsed fairly often: Exams don’t measure everything that … Continue reading
Developing Writing. Exploring the process from YR to Y6.
At the end of term I spent a fantastic day working with staff at Cirencester Primary School. As part of the day, we ran an exercise to explore standards in writing – a process I have now facilitated a few times; it is always absolutely fascinating. As part of my talk earlier in the day, … Continue reading
Understanding Assessment: A blog guide
In my experience, assessment is widely misunderstood by a lot of people in education – which is a worry given how much of it we do and how high the stakes are with formal assessment issues. There all kinds of confusions, false premises, false promises and circularities across the system. There are too many … Continue reading
Get assessment right and reduce workload at the same time. #HTRTSummit
On Friday 23rd February I gave talk at the Headteachers’ Roundtable Summit on the theme of assessment and workload. This blog captures some of the main points. I’ve been exploring this theme is various other places too so, to avoid repetition, please also read: Towards an Assessment Paradigm Shift – how we need away from macro … Continue reading
Don’t do ‘Can do’. The problems with can-do checklists and trackers.
In my recent talk at ResearchEd in Birmingham (and more recently at Blackpool) , I explored some ideas about assessment and critiqued various responses to the challenge of getting assessment right. Sensibly enough, given all the limitations and flaws in grading systems, lots of schools are trying to make their assessment systems meaningful, rooted in … Continue reading
We know Amy is struggling. The question is what we do about it.
As part of my talk at ResearchEd in Birmingham last weekend, I explored the role of centralised data collection, the ever-present bell curve, the problems with morphing fine-grained ideas about standards and achievement in different subjects into common data formats – all as a pre-amble to examining the limits of ‘can do’ statements. (That’s a … Continue reading
Data-drops. Get some perspective.
This tweet below is one my most-ever liked and RT’d tweets It clearly resonates with people. It’s worth exploring the reasons why that might be. Some of the reasons are highlighted in the thread that follows and some of the replies. A lot the issues are covered in a previous post about what I … Continue reading
Six principled practices for intelligent schools:
On my travels I’ve encountered schools that are doing brilliant things without resorting to short-cuts, without saying that they’ve sacrificed their principles to satisfy external pressures and without making life miserable for their staff with ugly brute-force whip-cracking performance cultures. Some schools are lovely to work in because leaders increasingly recognise the power of building … Continue reading
Curriculum Building: Every step matters; know your role; make it count. e.g. Writing YR to Y11.
In the last few weeks I’ve had a lot of conversations with teachers and leaders in schools in challenging circumstances at both primary and secondary. A common experience has been the difficult process of trying to build a coherent curriculum in a context of staff turbulence, curriculum reform and recruitment challenges. I’ve also worked with … Continue reading
Teaching Fundamentals: Checking for Recall and Understanding.
I would say that this is often one of the weakest areas of practice in teaching in relation to how important it is: checking that students know and understand what we think we have taught them. If I tell you something or explain something to you I want to be sure that you’ve understood it … Continue reading
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