Assessment (Part 1): what does the research say?
4 evidence informed features of assessment
Hello Curriculum Thinkers,
We’ve come a long way as a profession in terms of curriculum design: from a 2014 revamped National Curriculum, to a focus on using evidenced based research in teaching and learning.
An essential question still remaining, however, is how do we know that our students are actually learning the things we are teaching in our curriculum?
Or, in short, how do schools assess their students?
To help answer the question, Middle Leader and NCETM Researcher - Jessica Dobrowolski - has found 21 schools with excellent academic outcomes, to learn about their assessment practice and share what they do.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll reveal what she observed across:
what the research suggests about how you should approach assessment
practical features of schools’ assessment policies, practice and frameworks
guidance schools create to help staff make it all happen
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access a bank of 45+ assessment resources: policies, calendars, parent reports, etc
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4 evidence informed features of assessment
The bad news is, a look back at a brief history of events surrounding assessment in schools, reveals there has been significant change and uncertainty in recent years.
The good news is, a look at the research might provide some clarity and a productive path forwards.
So what does it suggest about how you should approach assessment.
Here’s what Jessica learned in her own words…
1. Curriculum and Assessment planned in parallel
“But Miss, we never learned this!” A phrase I have heard all too often in my own classroom and in the classrooms of my colleagues. Perhaps you've heard something similar?
Turns out, the kids may have been on to something all along. According to Phil Stock, of the Greenshaw Research School, students often sit assessments that are not sampling the content and skills of the intended curriculum. This could be due to:
A culture of high accountability that has forced assessment writers to narrow assessment focus to the “most important” or “most visible” knowledge and skills rather than the breadth of knowledge and skills necessary to master a topic or field
A lack of coherence and structure in the curriculum making it difficult to pinpoint what needs to be assessed and what that assessment should look like
A lack of in depth knowledge about the subject or curriculum (and the vital knowledge and skills needed to be learnt) from the person constructing the assessment
So, our first criteria for a high quality assessment framework is that it should be planned in tandem with the curriculum. Assessment should not exist as its own separate entity.
Planning assessment alongside the curriculum means you should plan: when the assessment will take place, what skills or knowledge you want assessed, and how the assessment will be structured. (Our premium members can see detailed examples of synthesized curriculum and assessment frameworks here).
I was told often in the early days of my career that you should always, “backwards plan” or make sure you know exactly what you want your students to know and do by the end of the week, topic, unit etc..
Planning your assessments alongside your curriculum should work the same way. If you have a strong understanding of your curriculum and you know what you want from the students then your assessments should reflect what you have taught them.
2. Assessment purpose and structure should inform each other.
The purpose of assessment usually falls into two distinct categories of formative and summative assessment. Ideally, a unit, topic, or term will have a range of formative assessments throughout that culminate in a summative assessment that covers everything that has been taught.
Dylan Williams brilliantly (in my opinion) explains that formative assessment is only meaningful when teachers use it to adapt their teaching. In other words, Assessment for Learning (AfL) is only purposeful when teachers do something with that information, ie: review a concept, propose an intervention etc.. Your formative assessments shouldn’t be geared towards giving a mark or grade. They’re your mile markers on the journey towards the summative assessment. You should change course if the information you gather at each formative assessment point isn’t what you want from your students.
Therefore, a strong school assessment system will be ‘combined’ of assessments and consist of something like this:
An interim assessment, suggesting a place for students to start.
Formative assessment, allowing the teacher to adjust and help the student progress.
An Interim assessment, giving a first look at achievement.
Formative assessment, allowing the teacher to adjust content according to progress.
Summative assessment, identifying overall achievement of the students.
Once you know what you want to assess, this should inform how you assess that particular skill or concept. Dylan Williams explains that teachers often fall into the trap of assessing humanities subjects (English and History for example) through descriptive essay tasks whereas STEM subjects are often assessed through short task/answer is either right or wrong format.
However, there is no reason that all subjects can’t have a mix of formative assessment for style and level of difficulty. As a NCETM maths mastery specialist I often tell my students that the answer is often the most boring part of maths - what I’m really interested in is how they got the answer and the verbalisation of the critical thinking I’m trying to get them to engage in.
So how far they got into answering the question and what steps they took to get there would form part of my formative feedback to them- giving them their best chance at success in a summative assessment.
3. Curriculum and Assessment should follow a progression model.
Earlier in this article, I mentioned the removal of National Curriculum Levels which unfortunately did not mean an immediate move away from level-style assessment and progression.
Instead, schools re-invented levels or used GCSE levels at KS3 because that was seen as a safe and comfortable course of action. This led to the same original problem- a constant set of summative assessments that did not describe to students how to get better.
In other words, there was no guidance for students on how to progress. Without a set of levels, there was a gaping hole in guidance on what a student's journey should look like.
Thankfully we have an answer to this. Michael Fordham was the first to coin the term, “the curriculum is the progression model” and what he meant by this was literal. The curriculum is, amongst many other things, a sequence of knowledge and skills we want students to learn with the time they have with us at school.
So, simply assess students against the progress outlined in your school curriculum (this of course means you will have to make sure your curriculum is super tight).
4. Move beyond the predicted “flight path”
OFSTED have recognised learning is often non-linear, making student outcomes difficult to predict. Thus, the “flight-path” model wherein students are predicted a grade at the start of their secondary school career and assessed against that grade should be rethought. This would also allow for greater opportunity for progress as there is no attainment “ceiling” attached to any one student.
Let's take a moment to quickly summarise our key research findings on assessment:
Curriculum and Assessment planned in parallel
Assessment purpose and structure should inform each other.
Curriculum and Assessment should follow a progression model.
Move beyond the predicted “flight path”
If you want to see what that looks like in practice, tune in next week or read the full report here.
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