Regular, informal assessments of pupils can boost grades

Embedding Formative Assessment, a method that allows teachers to use regular, informal assessments to identify their individual students’ strengths and weaknesses and adapt their teaching accordingly – can boost Year 11 students’ progress by two additional months.

This is according to new research published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). 140 English schools and 25,000 Year 10 and 11 pupils took part in the randomised controlled trial of Embedding Formative Assessment and evidence showed that high-quality feedback can be one of the most cost-effective ways of boosting pupil attainment. But while many schools already use formative assessment strategies – where teachers make decisions, minute-by-minute and day-by-day, about how best to improve their pupils’ learning - they can be challenging to implement.

One example of a formative assessment technique is checking on pupils' understanding by asking all students to show their response to a question at the same time, perhaps by holding up their answers on a mini-whiteboard or slate. The teacher can decide whether they need to review the material with the whole class, to identify a small number of pupils needing individual help, or ask the pupils to discuss their answers with their peers.

In this trial of Embedding Formative Assessment, schools received detailed resource packs to run highly-structured monthly workshops, known as Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs). All teaching staff were involved and split into groups of 8-14 people. In these sessions, teachers discussed different formative assessment strategies and received support to change their practice and embed their use in the classroom. In-between workshop sessions, teachers were expected to observe their peer’s lessons and provide feedback to each other.

The independent evaluators from NIESR found that students whose teachers were trained in this approach made two months more progress than a similar group of pupils whose teachers did not receive the intervention. The findings have a very high level of security as it was a large and well-run trial, which means we can be confident in the results.

According to the report, teachers appeared to implement these techniques more with younger pupils, so the effects of the intervention may be greater over the long-term. The evaluators also found some tentative results that pupils with lower prior attainment made more progress than their classmates.

The teachers that took part were largely positive about the programme. They felt that they improved their teaching by sharing knowledge with their colleagues and experimenting with different strategies.

The EEF will now explore ways to support more schools to use the programme.

The project was delivered by SSAT, the Schools, Students and Teachers network (SSAT) and based on the work of Professor Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, the trial ran from September 2015 – July 2017.

Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “We know that feedback can be one of the most effective ways of improving outcomes for pupils – but integrating feedback approaches in ways which result in better outcome for students is notoriously difficult.

“So the results of this trial are hugely encouraging and provide very practical ways for teachers to realise the promise of feedback in the classroom. The fact there is some tentative evidence that the approach particularly benefits poorer students is especially promising, as we look for more ways to galvanise the evidence base to narrow the attainment gap.”

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