I was recently asked to talk at a Maths Teacher Network about how we are planning to assess post levels. These are my thoughts so far...

The issues with using SATs papers to assess pupils....

Using past SATs papers to assess pupils' 'current' levels has been common practice in secondary schools. The problem with this approach is that the level assigned to a pupil is dependent on the score that they achieve on the paper and does not identify or address which skills they have mastered and which areas require further development. For example, simply by accumulating enough marks on an exam paper a pupil can 'achieve' a level 5 without having demonstrated secure understanding of level 5 maths skills. This does not enable teachers or pupils to identify any gaps in a pupil's knowledge but actually makes it easier to overlook these as the pupil has an overall score to which a level can easily be ascribed.

Traffic light /rag analysis can be used to identify which types of questions pupils were able to answer correctly but this is also limited. How much can we tell about a pupil's understanding of, for example fractions, simply by knowing that in an exam they answered the fraction question either correctly or incorrectly? 

Learning Journeys and Assessment Tasks...

I began developing the use of Learning Journeys and Assessment tasks 3 years ago, with my colleague Kevin Knowles, in an attempt to address these issues.
Learning Journeys are designed to enable students to identify the mathematical skills they have mastered, the skills that they need to develop and any gaps in their knowledge. Pupils are given a Learning Journey at the start of a unit of work and a set of questions which enable them to demonstrate their current knowledge of the skills described in the learning journey. This enables pupils to see their 'starting point' and therefore to select appropriate tasks that will move their learning on throughout the unit. Learning Journeys make progress visible to students as they can track their progress against the learning journey at various stages during a unit of work. At the end of the unit they are given an assessment tasks which enable them to reflect on what they can do at the end of the unit which they couldn't do at the start.

The Learning Journeys which we are currently using in the Maths Department ascribe levels to each of the skills they contain. We are planning to move from levels to 'thresholds.' This would involve deciding which skills or knowledge we would expect our lower attaining, middle attaining and higher attaining pupils to master and ascribing these a 'threshold' instead of a level. (The idea of thresholds was shared by Shaun Allison in a workshop he delivered which was attended by a member of our Senior Leadership Team http://classteaching.wordpress.com/assessment-without-levels/.) The Senior Leadership Team are currently discussing what these thresholds may be called in our school, one suggestion is to use the terms;

Securing
Developing
Establishing
Advancing

If we go ahead with these threshold descriptors then a learning journey would look like this....





The assessment task that pupils are asked to complete at the end of a unit are designed to assess the skills on the relevant learning journey and provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate their understanding, for example through probing questions. 

The link below is to an example of how a Learning Journey and Assessment Task would be used to assess pupils using thresholds rather than levels.

I was recently interviewed about how I use a Growth Mindset approach in my teaching. Here are my responses to the interview questions.

What language do you use to promote a growth mindset in your lessons?

I explain to pupils the difference between performance and learning. Pupils often mistake performance, e.g. being able to successfully complete a task or answer lots of questions correctly as a measure of success in a classroom. I point out that this is not learning if they have spent the lesson engaged in a task which they could already confidently do. I want my pupils to understand that every lesson they should be engaged in a challenging task and that this might mean that they make mistakes to begin with or they produce less ‘work on paper’, as they have spent more time in discussion, or getting to grips with understanding something new.

I talk about the need to demonstrate resilience, the importance of not giving up and saying that the task is ‘too hard.’ Often when a pupil asks for help I will answer their question with a series of questions to scaffold their learning. I teach my pupils to ‘self scaffold’ by asking these questions as part of an internal dialogue. I use a strategy called ‘Boxing Up’ that was developed by Zeb Friedman @springmaths to enable pupils to tackle complicated maths problems through self questioning. You can read more about 'Boxing Up' on the Talk for Writing page of my website, which you can find using the link below.

I discuss the importance of taking risks and overcoming a fear of failure. I want students to see ‘failure’ as natural part of the learning process. I encourage pupils to view mistakes as learning opportunities. I explain that a mistake can reveal a misconception that once identified can be addressed. I encourage my pupils to not only correct their mistake but reflect upon what the misunderstanding was that caused them to make the mistake. One of the ways in which I do this is be using something I call the ‘My Favourite Mistakes’ template with pupils. This can be found on the home page of my website by following the link to Self Reflection Tools for pupils.

I let my pupils know that I value progress more than attainment and I use Learning Journeys to give pupils a clear sense of what progress will look like for them. Carole Dweck discusses the importance of giving pupils ‘meaningful learning tasks’ a process which she describes as enabling students to ‘see themselves doing tasks they couldn't do before and understanding concepts they couldn't understand before.’ (Dweck 2010) Learning Journeys enable pupils to 'see' this. You can download these from the Learning Journey's page of my website, which you can find using the link below.

I discuss with my students how important it is that they develop their skills as independent learners. I want pupils to take ownership of their learning and learning journeys enable them to do this by making it possible for them to identify and select an appropriate task each lesson. I also give pupils ownership of their learning through engaging them in Inquiry.
‘In inquiry maths, students take responsibility for directing the lesson with the teacher acting as the arbiter of legitimate mathematical activity.’ Andrew Blair @inquirymaths. You can read more about Inquiry on Andrew’s website, which can be found using the link below.  

What visual aids do you use in your classroom?

I have a display board which contains the speech bubbles from the image above and I encourage pupils to use templates like the ones below when reflecting on their learning. You can find these and more example on my home page. 

Can you completely change a fixed mindset?

I think that mindset is a continuum and all of us are somewhere between a completely fixed mindset and a completely growth mindset. I think it is possible to move all pupils further along the continuum towards a more growth mindset. In the past we have asked our students to complete a Growth Mindset Questionnaire which we used to identify which students required the most intervention to change their mindset. You can download the questionnaire and the analysis tool from the home page of my website.

Have you seen a change in the teaching and learning that goes on in your classroom since promoting growth mindsets?

The biggest change that I have seen in teaching and learning since promoting a growth mindset is levels of engagement among my pupils. I believe that having a fixed mindset is something that leads to what I describe as the ‘passive learner’ the easy to overlook, well behaved, quiet child who may ‘perform’ every lesson but who does not make the expected progress. Promoting a growth mindset and a culture where pupils expect to be challenged and expect to make mistakes, results in a culture where pupils are no longer fearful to participate fully and to embrace challenge.