Reassessing assessment

WOOO WOOOOOO all aboard the 'Assessment without levels' juggernaut!

So, this time last lear the time had finally come for my school to take its first steps on the journey that is redefining assessment in a life after levels.

And what an exciting trip it's proven to be. Because, once you get over the terrifying, often chaotic, smorgasboard of options available to you, and get your head around the appallingly fragmented nature of attempting to compare progress of cohorts across differing specs, schools, key stages, LAs, systems, you'll realise we're actually in a PRETTY POWERFUL position.

For once the decision-making is in our hands: we are redefining assessment in a way that works in our schools and for our students.

Of course, all of this should be prefaced with the fact that I am a very lucky teacher.

I'm lucky that my school decided the way ahead was to set up a working party of interested teachers to consider what might work best for us, rather than making top-down decisions. 

I'm also lucky that at that working party, with just weeks of the summer term left, our brave Senior AHT decided to listen to the enthusiastic voices of the Faculty leaders for English and Maths (@mr_g_walton) and gave us permission to go ahead with a September launch, piloting an assessment model ahead of a school-wide launch in September 2016. 

Mostly, I'm lucky for the team work and quiet wisdom of my superb DHoF (@miss_s_fry) and the skill and enthusiasm of our team for taking on a new approach whilst also grappling with new GCSE and A Level specifications.

In the rest of this post you'll find an attempt to quantify what we did, why we did it, and what happens next. I've done a stack of reading around the topic and apologise if I've unwittingly failed to credit any ideas from others. I will say in advance that I'm 100% indebted to the magnificent Freya Odell @fod3 for sharing her own new KS3 assessment criteria and giving me a much needed starting point for our own and the 'Growth and Thresholds' work of Shaun Allison @shaunallison on which our whole  school approach is built. 

What did we set out to do?

1. Rather than seeking to reinvent the wheel, we wanted to make sure we used best practice from other schools further on in their AwL journey. As already stated, our starting point was primarily the ‘Thresholds and Growth’ model developed by Shaun Allison, but I was also interested by the way in which the likes of Alex Quigley (@HuntingEnglish) mapped back from the skills students need to study English at A Level and beyond.

2. We wanted to ensure that clearly communicating to students what they needed to do in the classroom to improve was at the core of our new assessment model. We also wanted to make this easier for teachers, doing away with superfluous assessment folders, APP grids, cover sheets etc. Basically, we wanted to do less better. 

3. We wanted to focus on achievement in relation to students’ end of KS2 starting points, showing that we valued the progress of ALL students, in order to foster a growth mindset and to encourage students to value their own progress. Early on we realised that this necessitated rejection of purely age-related expectations which weren't going to be appropriate for our wonderfully varied intake and that felt unhelpful for students with SEN.

4. We wanted to create assessment objectives that more effectively prepared students for the increased challenge of all the new GCSE/A Level courses. Again, we also felt that intuitively we could reduce the number of AFs to create something more easily communicated and understood.

5. We wanted to more effectively track student achievement in different aspects of English so we could more effectively target our interventions to address underachievement. This is one we've returned to: 'do not collect data if you're not going to do anything with it' I now have tattooed on my soul.

What did we then do as a result?

We took a good hard look at book marking and decided that what helps students improve is high quality verbal and written feedback - not an often arbitrary number. We therefore decided all formative work would simply state:

ATL = Attitude to learning

WWW = What went well

EBI = Even better if

We then decided we still needed a standardised way of knowing if students were making good progress. We decided to do this by staying with our model of termly assessments. These needed to be marked and so we set about developing our own AOs and assessment criteria.

We did this by using A Level and GCSE assessment objectives to boil down achievement in English to its base elements. For example, reading has six AOs:

A Level	Lit AO5: Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.	Lit AO2: Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts. Lang AO2: Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use. Lang AO1: Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated terminology		Lit AO1: Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology	Lit AO4: Explore connections across literary texts. Lang AO4: Explore connections across texts, informed by linguistic concepts and methods.	Lit AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. Lang AO3: Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors and language features are associated with the construction of meaning.
GCSE	AO1 Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas. Selects and synthesises evidence from different texts.	AO2 Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology	AO2 Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology	AO4 Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references.	AO3 Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two or more texts.	AO3 Considering the significance of context
KS3	Reading for meaning	Analysis of language	Analysis of structure	Personal, critical response	Comparison	Understanding of context

We used the top of the GCSE mark scheme to create a bench mark of excellence for students at KS3. From there, we considered the achievement benchmarks we would expect them to meet as they stepped towards this.

A Level	Lit AO5: Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.
GCSE	AO1 Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas. Selects and synthesises evidence from different texts.
KS3	Reading for meaning
Step 7	There is a well-structured, conceptualised argument in response to the task with perceptive exploration of explicit and implicit meanings. There is synthesis of evidence from across the text/s with judicious use of precise quotation to support interpretations.
Step 6	There is sustained and developed response to the task which expresses thoughtful ideas about explicit and implicit meanings. Apt quotations are increasingly integrated into interpretations.
Step 5	There is a detailed response to the task which shows detailed understanding. A range of inferences have been made. There is effective use of a range of quotations to support the ideas expressed.
Step 4	There is an explained response to the task which shows clear understanding. At least one clear inference has been made. A range of relevant quotations have been selected and commented; comments are securely rooted in the text.
Step 3	There is an explained response to the task which shows understanding of the extract and the whole text. There is an attempt to infer/interpret information. Relevant quotations have been selected and commented on. However, the comments are not always accurate or securely rooted in the text.
Step 2	There is a supported response to the text and task which shows understanding of the extract and/or the whole text. There is at least one reference to the whole text. There is selection of, mostly relevant, quotations to support comments.
Step 1	Simple comments are made which show some understanding of the text, which may be an extract e.g. accuracy when responding to true or false statements. There is an attempt to select relevant quotations e.g. use of paraphrase when responding to a ‘List 4 things…’ task.
Step 0	There is little or no understanding of what has been read even when responding to simple texts or extracts. If there is any textual reference then it is irrelevant or inaccurate.

We allocated each child invisible pathway based on whether their end of KS2 attainment was low, middle or high using the same criteria as RAISE online:

Low = below Level 4

Middle = at Level 4

High = above Level 4

We then judged what would be expected progress for a child with each of these starting points and mapped a nominal pathway for them.

	Step 0	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4	Step 5	Step 6	Step 7
Low	Year 7 below	Year 7 expected	Year 7 good	Year 7 exceptional
Middle		Year 7 below	Year 7 expected	Year 7 good	Year 7 exceptional
High			Year 7 below	Year 7 expected	Year 7 good	Year 7 exceptional
Low		Year 8 below	Year 8 expected	Year 8 good	Year 8 exceptional
Middle			Year 8 below	Year 8 expected	Year 8 good	Year 8 exceptional
High				Year 8 below	Year 8 expected	Year 8 good	Year 8 exceptional
Low			Year 9 below	Year 9 expected	Year 9 good	Year 9 exceptional
Middle				Year 9 below	Year 9 expected	Year 9 good	Year 9 exceptional
High					Year 9 below	Year 9expected	Year 9 good	Year 9 exceptional

The new KS3 assessment objectives are mapped across the curriculum in Years 7-9 to ensure they are appropriately interleaved and that they build cumulatively.

The formal assessments are marked against a mark scheme generated by the DHoF from our master grid of assessment criteria - this ain't no APP grid!

After each of the formal assessments, teachers enter their marks onto a tracking document which then generates a progress outcome for each child. This gives the HoF/DHoF a live overview of the strengths/weaknesses of every child in the cohort, but also flags up students who aren't yet making expected progress so that appropriate interventions can be put in place.

What happens next?

Inspired initially by the outcome of the DfE workload reports, formal assessments are going termly rather than half-termly. This will halve data entry for teachers, but will also benefit students by allowing greater flexibility in curriculum delivery and building revision skills vital for a 100% exam GCSE course. I am hopeful it'll also support Faculty leaders to ensure that all data gathered is acted upon. 

We've also amended the wording of the assessment criteria for clarity and to make it more succinct (on reflection, 'variety of' is about as woolly as a sheep's coat). 

But, other than that, we're feeling pleased that the system we've ended up works for us, our students, and our wider school community. The emphasis really is on the learning, progress judgements are used as a marker on a journey and not a stick to beat students with, and there's finally a way of creating consistently high expectations for all students regardless of their starting point.

Surely that deserves a second WOO!

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Art of Poetry Teaching

There is something spitefully gleeful about telling a class you’re beginning study of poetry. As a teacher, you wait for the groans - the hyperbolic sighs – and allow yourself the smug warmth of a wry side-smile… for many an experienced English teacher will know that this much maligned genre is a source of joy for both teachers and students alike.

Maybe it’s the way most poems are able to fit snugly in the one hour study of a lesson; good poetry lessons sparkle in the grey of a Monday or else like snipers puncture the monotony of the school day. Forgotten is ‘progress over time’ when your class devour a poem whole in the twinkling of sixty minutes, and leave, satiated.

I would argue that reading poetry has the self-satisfaction of cracking a puzzle: for the A Level Media teachers out there, it’s Barthes’ enigma code or Altman’s pleasures of the intellectual puzzle transposed into literary form. Watching students’ pride in calling forth meaning from words that they had previously seen as meaning-less is like watching Faustus swell with hubris as he first conjured Mephastophilis. Only in a classroom there’ll be no inconvenient dragging off to hell, for this is a magic trick given not by the devil but by damn good learning and teaching.

Beyond acronyms of SMSC, poetry is a chance to philosophise, test out perspectives, and form a world view. Teaching teenagers how to read poetry seems like an utterly devious act when you find yourself traversing sex, philosophy, religion, and gender politics all in the space of five minutes*.

So it makes sense to me - despite the simplistic lure of AQA’s common sense AOs – not to start teaching of a poem by coldly looking at a set of criteria. No, this is a time to be impatient. When teaching a new poem start with the very best bit: the nugget; the germ; the gem.

Start with the best words (before considering why they’re in the best order). Start with the real toads (before picking apart the imaginary gardens they sit in).

To give a more tangible example, we can turn to the first two poems in AQA’s new ‘Love and Relationships’ anthology. For ‘When We Two Parted’ this nucleus can be found in the title. A swift parsing of the words via post-it notes will allow students to reveal for themselves the ‘crux’ of Byron’s biographical yearning for his lover at the end of their secret affair:

Parted                  The emotive verb indicates a separation: the end of a relationship.

We Two               The collective pronoun and number symbolise a happier time of togetherness.

When                   The past tense evokes a melancholy tone and sense of nostalgia.

And, yes, as the teacher, I can then plug in the gaps, give ‘her’ a name (and what a name), and support students in tracing the patterns that reinforce these ideas in the rest of the poem.

In Shelley’s ‘Love’s Philosophy’ this centre can be found by sifting out the verbs (mingle, mix, meet, kiss, clasp) and adding a couple of short prompts.

What does it mean to be a couple? Are you truly one or truly two?

Is the narrative persona male or female? What are the implications of your decision?*

And, yes, again, I can then connect them to the Romantics and Shelley’s turbulent love life. But not before. Not before they’ve shaken the meaning loose from the branches themselves.

In teaching poems I always come back – groggily, groggily – to the excitement of the first time I taught Chris Hildrew’s lesson Plath’s ‘Mushrooms’. Try it yourself: remove the title and give the poem to your Year 7 students. Allow students to form their own ideas, using evidence to support their blossoming interpretations. Then reveal the title (and Plath’s demons). I’ve created my own ode to this lesson using Plath’s ‘Metaphors’: students draw the images in the poem and you watch the pennies drop before exploding their minds by revealing the final line.

If we steal these moments of discovery from our children through direct instruction and the idea we can ever wholly ‘know’ (read: tie down, commodify, ‘own’) a poem’s meaning we take away something so much more than a few gained minutes of teaching time. There is a danger the art of exploratory teaching will become a Lost Art as we regurgitate factoids and turn to page 67 in a text book.

I will give students the trowel, the spade, and help them navigate the wilderness of a poem’s landscape. But I will not be the one to dig on their behalf.

Let your students be Indiana Jones for once, taking risks as they discover.

The potential pitfalls and positives of the 'walking talking' mock

Last year, in the whirl of final exam preparation, the 'walking talking' mock (WTM) first began to appear on my timeline. The sometimes cult-like prophets of PiXL extolled its virtues as a way of improving exam technique and raising student achievement. Kristian Still's 2015 blog post does a fantastic job of capturing the erstwhile hype from when this approach was first mooted.

For the uninitiated, it's a mock exam... but not as you know it. Rather than students battling their way through an entire paper in one blast, they instead engage in a somewhat stop/start process of teacher explanation followed by timed completion of each question.

Having suffered the pain of disappointing results last year my leadership mantra this year has been 'let's do things differently'. Enter the WTM stage left. We knew we had two specific issues in relation to underachievement in AQA GCSE English Language:
1) students failing to stick to the clear timings required for each question
2) students not fully understanding what was required in each question.

The WTM seemed like a good way to support students in understand the quantity they were able to write in the time allowed and to guide them through the nuances of the assessment criteria. However, concerned about the idea of holding court with 150 students for 3+ hours - and, if I'm honest, yet to be convinced it was worth the bother - I decided to trial the WTM with two target groups on days when our students otherwise would've been at home.

The trial
I thought it would be a hard sell to convince students to attend but, as they so often do, our students did me proud and I ended up with a cohort of thirtyish Higher tier students on day one, and the same for Foundation tier on day two, for a 4 hour trial WTM. 

Free bacon butties booked for the halfway point were an important aid to stamina and I'd encourage any of you undertaking a WTM to remember it's a marathon for all involved and sustenance for teachers and students alike will be well appreciated!

Judging by my wholly unscientific student voice exit evaluation, students felt more confident and informed after the trial.

After the ‘walking talking’ mock exam I felt…	…more confident.	…the same.	…less confident.
Higher tier	26	1	0
Foundation tier	28	2	1
‘I feel I have a clearer understanding of what I need to do to achieve my target grade.’	Definitely	Partially/ somewhat	Disagree
Higher tier	8	19	0
Foundation tier	18	13	0
I would like to repeat the ‘walking talking’ mock exam before my June exam.	Agree	Not sure	Disagree
Higher tier	10	12	5
Foundation tier	18	11	2

More pleasingly, after marking their papers, it was clear that it had led to evident gains in their achievement. The combination of these two factors launched me to action, rolling the WTM out to the rest of the cohort as soon as I was physically able.

The trial turned out to be a really important process in itself in that it taught me some important lessons about how to ensure the sessions were effective. I'll attempt to distil some of these below, but I strongly urge anyone with a large cohort to try it out in this way first.
The logistics
Organising a WTM is like being a scout: you need to be prepared. You'll want to keep everything you can as similar as possible to the conditions in which students will sit the final exam. So, it's time to apologise to your Head of PE and get the Sports Hall/Gym booked.

We were also supported by our superb Exams Officer and hardworking team of invigilators whose support was invaluable in establishing the necessary entrance routines for phones, bags, coats etc. Thanks to them, exam desks were set up as they usually are with students' laminated name cards with their exam codes and a strictly regulated seating plan. Interestingly, the invigilators found it hard to adjust to the idea of us talking to students in the exam hall and it's well worth explaining what a WTM entails prior to starting so you're all comfortable with one another's role.

Additionally, tech support is invaluable. The first of the trial sessions, for Higher tier, I did without a Powerpoint or projector - the impact of which can arguably seen in the evaluation table above. Don't make my mistake: a few short bulletpoints on a slide is important visual reinforcement for students of the key messages.

After day two of the trial I'd also, unsurprisingly, lost my voice. To ensure you're still able to teach the next day, invest in a £7 wireless mic from Amazon and blag an amp from the Music department.

Also, consider filming your WTM as a revision reference for students. If you're up for this added challenge, you'll need a camcorder or your phone, tripod, and charger. I found it was easy to place this to avoid filming students, but give yourself some to set it up prior to them entering.

And, finally, to avoid shivering students, do remind the caretakers to put the heaters on(!)

The instructions
It can be harder than you think solely to comment on exam technique and not give any specific guidance about the content to be included in students' answers. I'd go so far as to advise not reading the exact exam paper students have in front of them so you're simply not able to give them advice on the content to include.

It's also really important that the guidance you are giving is already consistently embedded across the teaching in your Faculty before the WTM. We've worked hard this year to ensure that the messages we're giving our students is consistent across classes and revision sessions. I think it's really important that we all agree on what is required in the exam based on sound advice from current examiners and more experienced colleagues. To support this, I produced an A3 guide to each tier of the exam for my teachers and tiered work book for students that reinforces key messages in a similar format.

The follow-up
As with any mock exam, the marking and feedback that teachers provide to students is key ensuring its a powerful tool for improvement. Students' papers should inform lesson planning, remembering that if students can't do something under WTM conditions then, quite frankly, swift, sharp intervention is needed.

Whilst it's easy to get swept up in improved outcomes, it's clearly important not to rely on the grades generated by WTM for forecast data. They are not an accurate portrayal of students' ability to respond when left to their own devices, as they will be in final exams. It's therefore important to book in a 'proper' mock exam swiftly afterwards both to reinforce exam technique and to gauge the impact of the WTM. Ours is after Easter and I for one will be waiting with bated breath to see whether the positive impact I'm expecting has actually been achieved.

 

A very special relationship: towards better cross-phase empathy andunderstanding

I'm going to start this post with a quick plea to secondary school teachers: please stop opining that the new end of Key Stage 2 expected standard for writing 'looks like a GCSE grade C'. Whether it does or doesn't (and, for what it's worth, I'm not convinced such mechanical tick-boxing does) this comment is leading some Primary school teachers to complain 'What on earth do students do for five years?'.

That this question is being asked by Primary colleagues at all, quite frankly, pains me. What do they do? Well, quite a lot actually. My immediate reaction is to present our Year 9 exam papers or get out the superb work of my Year 10s. But, my second reaction is one of sadness because for me that question typifies a lack of empathy and understanding that, in many cases, is found between Primary and Secondary teachers both online and in real life.

In the last year I have had to defend the size of my school from Primary teachers who've presumed that have 1700 students on roll automatically results in a faceless institution in which Year 7 students are somehow swallowed up. For the record, I can assure you that the young people you entrust us with are very much seen as individuals by their teachers, form tutors, and Heads of Year, and we delight in watching them blossom into young adults.

I've also heard numerous complaints that in Year 7 classes across the country core learning is being lost, students regress or, at best, 'tread water'. Whilst the national achievement dip in Year 7 has been well-documented, there are numerous social and educational demands on students as they begin Key Stage 3, not least the widening breadth of study, the more challenging mode of assessment and demand for independence, all against reduced or less flexible curriculum time for individual subjects. I don't think there's a secondary school in Britain that isn't striving to buck this trend and placing the blame squarely at the door of secondary school teachers doesn't do much for cross-phase relationship building.

As secondary school teachers we are painfully aware of the limits of what we can do. We want our Key Stage 3 to build on prior learning and to be a rich, exciting and challenging progression but, try as we might, we simply can't adapt our Key Stage 3 curriculum to complement all of our fifteen feeder primaries. Conversely, I wonder, could Primary school teachers respond to the curriculum of one 'feeder' secondary school? I would argue that it doesn't take two years to prepare students for English GCSE: it takes a childhood of schooling. But it doesn't always feel there is a willingness amongst Primary colleagues to acknowledge this responsibility on top of the pressures they already have in this brave new world of testing.

It is perhaps unsurprising that relationships become frayed when there are so many external pressures at both phases. We become inward-looking in a kind of Blitz spirit as we batten down the hatches and prepare for what is on its way. With so many challenges, it's no wonder that there's so often a lack of empathy in both directions.

So, how do we go about mending this most special of relationships? Well, I for one am going to strive to keep at the forefront of my mind that whilst times are hard for us they're immensely hard for you too. At every possible juncture I'm going to express my true feelings about Primary school teachers, which is that quite simply I'm in awe of you.

You have skill sets that I simply don't. I knew on day two of my pre-PGCE Primary experience that I didn't have the patience or sensitivity needed. This was perhaps most sharply apparent the moment the boy with the snotty nose approached me and said, "Miss, I've pooed myself" and with the dawning realisation he expected me to do something about it. I'm trying to learn about phonics and strategies to improve handwriting, but I have no doubt that in these areas you are the experts. But then I would hazard there are areas for which the reverse is also true.

My commitment to you will be that I'm going to make better use of all the information you give me about the children you pass on. I'm going to skill myself - and my team - up on grammar teaching so that we can reinforce your use of terminology and language learning. I'm also going to do whatever I can to build professional networks that include Primary teachers, like the wonderful Michael Tidd and Shareen Mayers, so that our relationships grow and become even more fruitful over time.

Let's all agree to meet one another in a space that is judgement-free. Let's read one another's blogs and ask open, honest questions that challenge our presumptions. Let's recognise that we're both working towards the same end and responding to extreme pressures that one another might not fully appreciate or understand. If we can do this then it will be a very special relationship indeed.

Questions are a good place to start

I’ve spent my day wading through three sets of books: wonderful, glorious, messy and brilliant exercise books. Against this backdrop, I’ve also distracted myself by engaging in fervent online chats spanning everything from how to get Tesco to pay for your highlighters, Derrida and deconstruction theory, and how to tackle Paper 2 of the new AQA GCSE English Language spec.

One of these casual exchanges sparked a blog post and, now I’ve finally popped away my purple pen (and once more donned my usual elephantine HoF hide), I’ve got about ten minutes to respond before my bath is full and I go and finish another chapter of ‘Batavia’ before bed.

So, here's my attempt to explain exactly what I *did* mean when I asserted:  

1) “Asking questions is the starting point for all learning.”
2)  “If only experts asked questions teachers may as well give up now”

Which means it’s time for some Emily Bronte.

“Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree”

“The writer uses nature to communicate ideas of sadness. It says, “Fall, leaves, fall”. This suggests the poet as [sic] described someone who is having a bad time, and he [sic] just wants all his problems to drop and go away, just like when leaves drop of [sic] a tree. We want them to blow away so we can carry on moving forward.”  -  Student response to an unseen poem

The student who wrote this response, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t have much content knowledge that may have helped her to unpick meanings, the writer’s use of language etc. The nature of the unseen response also doesn’t allow this understanding to be scaffolded by the teacher in a format that can be learnt and retained.

And yet she’s understood that there is a meaning here beyond the literal, unlocking ideas about tone and imagery. So, how did she do it? She asked questions. She sought meaning through her own enquiry.

She isn’t an expert and yet she isn’t ignorant. Her own questions unlocked understanding and signalled the knowledge to be gained.

Which isn’t the same as saying that all questions are created equal; I absolutely agree that the more you know the more interesting your questions are likely to be. If this student knew something about Bronte’s life, perhaps, or had the subject terminology to unpick how meanings were created she clearly could’ve created a more nuanced response.

So, OK, I may have fallen into the hyperbolic trap of the tweet when I said questions are the starting point for ‘all’ learning. I’m sure there are many contexts when a secure base of knowledge is absolutely necessary for learning - if not most - and that my example of the unseen poem could be seen as somewhat ‘niche’. And, yes, I apologise to David for the needless prefix of “Rubbish” before statement 2. But, it is surely the most human of endeavours to ask. To seek. To pursue knowledge throughly asking. 

If we only allow those with a secure knowledge base to ask we are surely cutting off the source of inspiration and excitement that makes this job so wonderful and exciting. So, well, fun.

And that’s what I meant by my two assertions.

Let’s encourage our students so they have the confidence to ask. Let’s start by inspiring our students so they want to ask.

Content knowledge can provide answers, but at its end point we just find more questions. Let’s ensure when we get there that our students are able to create those questions for themselves and aren’t simply holding out their spoons waiting for non-existent answers.

Top tactics to make revision unavoidable for Year 11 students

It’s still five months before the first GCSE English exams and 1 in 5 of our Year 11 have already attended at least one voluntary after school revision session.

Now, not for a second am I complacent about this. What will impact student achievement this summer is sustained hard work – both in and out of lesson – but I am taking a moment to have a demi-smile that this year group clearly want to do well and are upping their game when it most counts for both them and the school.

I was asked by the lovely @cazzwebbo how we go about getting these students to attend such additional revision sessions. I can only reply with a slightly scattergun and naggingly persistent approach that uses two main tactics:

 

1)      MAKE REVISION UNAVOIDABLE AT SCHOOL

·         We display posters on the doors of all form rooms and class rooms.

·         We have daily announcements over the P.A. system at the end of the school day to say where revision is starting.

·         We give reminders in year team briefing for form tutors to pass on and ensure these messages are repeated in assembly.

·         We have a form group league table updated on a weekly basis to show which groups have attended most frequently and then award prizes to encourage a competitive element.

·         Our HoY has a loyalty card scheme which unlocks access to the prom and then further Vivo rewards.

·         Revision session reminders are also displayed on TV screens around the school.

·         We provide free buses for students to get home twice a week to ensure every child can access the after school sessions.

 

2)      MAKE REVISION UNAVOIDABLE AT HOME

·         We give all parents revision class timetables on Year 11 Parents’ Evening. Class teachers then refer to this in their discussions with parents to clarify expectations about which sessions their child will attend.

·         We send text messages to all parents to remind them when revision sessions are taking place.

 We call home or post letters when target students are not attending and clearly need to be.

3)      MAKE REVISION COUNT

·         We make sure that when students do attend that their time is well spent by teaching well-structured sessions. All teachers ‘opt-in’ to lead the sessions they are most confident delivering. This helps ensure that they come back!

·         We give every student a timetable showing the topics that will be covered on each day so they can ensure they can address areas of weakness. We hope that this encourages them to divide their time sensibly between revision for other subjects. Note: we remove the teachers who will lead each session as students sometimes only want to go to the ones ‘their’ teacher leads!

·         We liaise with Maths to ensure that students can attend revision in both core subjects.

Of course, this only scratches the surface of our revision strategy. I haven’t even begun to mention the revision bags, QR code revision sheets, revision book marks, half term and Easter schools, intervention days, walking/talking mock exams, use of website or Twitter, or our deployment of an English Support teacher. I’ll save that little lot for another blog.