Assessment for Learning

Any child or adult working in the school.

The Education Works Assessment for Learning consultancy includes:

• Review staff understanding of AfL in school and highlight specific areas to be addressed through an AfL action plan.
• Ensure processes and procedures are understood by children and that these are incorporated into the schools Teaching & Learning policy and Marking/Feedback policy.
• Confirm the content of the latest Assessment, Teaching & Learning and Marking & Feedback policies – including the Marking and Feedback ‘Quickstart’ guide.
• Hold a staff meeting on AfL. This could be a twilight session with a focus on in-school policy/practice plus key messages on self-evaluation and peer-evaluation as well as baseline feedback.
• Complete an AfL / Marking and Feedback baseline audit across the school to determine whether agreed policy is agreed practice.
• Confirm where practice does meet the ‘guidelines’ and how to develop school-wide consistency. Address the question of whether policy needs to adapt to fit practice or vice versa.
• Re-audit Marking & Feedback with the same children and compare and contrast responses.
• Question audits – using the ‘rich questioning’ audit, what sort of questions are being asked and how often? / are questions differentiated? / do teachers use ‘no hands up’ strategies? / is the classroom a ‘question-rich’ environment? / do children ask questions and are they followed up during the lesson/in subsequent lessons?
• Self-assessment and peer-assessments – develop practice so that children know how well they are doing and why.
• Target-setting and target-getting – develop whole-school approaches to targets that allow the flexibility of more personalised approaches.

Children know how well they are doing and can explain how and why their teacher or peers or classroom supports their learning.