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 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.
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.
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