Nurture 14/15

In the nick of time, I've reread last years nurture 13/14 post.  Quite a lot has changed in the past year although I still have the same number of close relatives that I did this time last year.  That might not sound much of an achievement, but sadly, it is.

So, on a cheerier note, what are my five four things from the past year that are achievements/things I'm pleased about.

Looking back.

Train travel.

This has reduced considerably since July when I started a new job based much closer to home.  My commute is now 1/2 hour each way, rather than 2 1/2 hour each way.  I don't miss the travelling, but I am coming to realise that I miss my morning thinking time.  I used to spend an hour thinking and reading on the train to York on work days.  This meant that I could guarantee time for reading policy documents, blogs, research papers etc.  My shorter commute means that I don't have that luxury. Although I have tried to block in time to my work day to do reading, so far it has been squeezed out each week.

Working (more than) full time

Since July I have been working full-time.  It was, very definitely, a shock to the system, and I do miss the flexibility that part-time work gave me.

I particularly miss the time I spent on my freelance work.  The long-term nature of these means that some of my previous projects are still ongoing, and I'm spending all my 'free-time' working (including much of this Christmas holiday).

I am now turning freelance work down (which I do struggle with), and some of the other work is coming to an end, so things should get easier.

On the plus side, I will get my name on two books next year!

Meetings

I have stepped into a management role with my new job, and it has been a shock.  Before I started, I must confess that I was looking forward to being 'the boss'.  I rapidly learned that actually my delusions of power were just that.  And that there is a lot more managing upwards needed than I realised. I'm getting there, but there were points in the last 6 months when I wondered if I'd done the right thing.

I also attend a lot of meetings.  Setting up Think Physics means that we've had to start building relationships internally at the university as well as externally with schools and other organisations. And that means meetings.  On average, 3 or 4 a day over the last 6 months.  Thankfully, for someone who is an introvert at heart, I can do functional extrovert reasonably well.

Think Physics

Back in April, Northumbria University advertised a series of posts for a new project called 'Think Physics'. It sounded interesting (albeit a little vague) and so I applied for the role of Director (and secondary specialist).  The project brings together lots of my previous experience - working with teachers, working in schools and physics.  It's a fabulous (if huge) project and has the potential to do really good things with schools in the NE .  Possibly the best bit though, is the team I work with. My boss has assembled a fantastic group of lovely people. We are all very different with a huge range of slightly overlapping areas of expertise - but they're all fab.  To be honest, I'm missing seeing them over the holiday it's that much fun working with them.

The project has had a slow start (e.g. 3 months to get a logo), but we're now getting things running and the diary is filling up.  One of the challenges will be to work out how we can make an  impact in the schools.  We want to do more than just 'wow, physics' activities (though we will do those too).  We are building on the IOP work about girls in physics, as well as the ASPIRES project findings about attitudes to 'doing science' in young people.  We know that it's really important to embed careers ideas into the work we are doing, and show that science (especially physics) is a springboard to interesting things.  And we've got just under 3 years to do it!

 

And a peek into the year ahead...

As with my nurture post last year, looking too closely at the year ahead is scary. My diary is, once again, already filling up.  However, there are a few things I'd like to achieve.

Work-life balance

I need one. Not taking on too much additional freelance work will help. However, controlling the amount of time I spend on electronic devices will also be a plus.  It's too easy to sit down 'just for five minutes' to check twitter/Facebook only to find that 2 hours have gone and it's bedtime.  This means that I get far less reading/crafting done than I would like.  Some discipline will be required in the new year.

I also want to increase the amount of exercise that I do.  Working every evening (when I'm not on a device) means that I'm not do as much as I used to, and my weight and fitness are showing the damage.  

Writing

I want to continue to blog and hopefully do some more formal writing too.  Seeing my name in print is just fabulous, and I'd like to do more of that.

Work-work balance

I need to figure out how to spend time well at work so that there is a good balance between the management aspects of my role and the secondary specialist bit.  At the moment it is heavily biased to the former and I'd like it to be a bit more evenly spread.

Research

I've got plans (as part of work) to carry out research into practical work in science (see previous blog post). Whilst the focus has, of necessity, changed slightly I still want to get this done and into print. 

And that's it.  Now to get on and do it.

Looking out for the wobbly middle!

No, this isn't a reflection on my post-christmas likely state.

Earlier this year I took a new job at Northumbria University working on a project to encourage young people to see science (particularly physics) as a springboard to interesting things.  There has been a lot of work recently (see the ASPIRES project) about why students don't study science.  A lot of the findings appear to support the idea that students like science in primary and early secondary school, but don't see themselves 'doing science'.  They have an (incorrect) idea of what a scientist is, and know that they don't want to do it.

Of course, I know that scientists don't look like this:

 

Image search results for 'scientist'

But children and young people don't.  This is what scientist is according to popular culture, and on the whole this is what they DON'T want to be.

Part of the work of my project is to try to develop more of an understanding of what doing science (and STEM) might look like as a career path.  We are developing case studies and careers materials showcasing people who have studied Physics to A-level and finding out where they are now, and how they got there. [Ad] These will be available on our website thinkphysics.org [End Ad].

However, one of the other things we're trying to do is to target some of our interventions at what I'm calling the 'wobbly middle'.  The middle-set kids who are doing okay in science, probably going to get an A or a B.  They could do sciences at A-level, but they often don't.  We want them to have a successful experience of doing science so that it becomes something that they can see themselves doing.  It's not that we don't want to work with the kids the school identifies as 'Gifted and Talented'* but in many ways, we feel we can have more of an effect with those wobbly middles.  We're helping our partner schools to think about how they can support these students, rather than focusing exclusively on the top or bottom of the cohort*.

It's not that I want every student to study science and go into a STEM career - but I do want them to have the opportunity to do so.

* I'm hopeful that the progress-8 measure will help in some ways.  It will ensure that there is a reason for the school to think about how to work with every child to improve their results, not just around the borders.

Finding research papers

It can be reasonably straightforward to find research papers online.  In this post I’ve outlined where you might find such papers, and how you can get copies of them.

1. Open Access papers and other sources

There is an open access movement slowly spreading through the journal world.  Whilst not all journals are open access, some do provide access to papers without charge to the reader. The downside is that their ‘impact rating’ tends to be lower and so academics may avoid publishing in them.

This website is a directory of open access education journals.  There are probably far more journals there than you will ever want to look at, but you might spot a few that look interesting.

There are other sources of educational research, and this helpful blog post from SUPER contains a number of links to research papers and information.  http://schooluniversitypartnership.wordpress.com/access-to-research/

2. Searching.

Avoid the temptation to use a standard search engine to look for research.  Instead make Google Scholar your friend.

This allows you to search for articles in scientific journals, and cuts out the blogs, news articles and general clutter that a standard search engine would return.

As with all search engines, the more specific you are the more helpful the results are likely to be.  There is also an advanced search query which allows you to be more specific about what you want to include or exclude from your search.

So for example, if I want to find out about the research into gender equality in STEM subjects, then I would get the following results:

On the right of the picture you can see that some of the articles are available as a pdf – and if you click on that link it will take you directly to the paper.

Narrowing your search:

You can use the search fields on the left hand side of the page to narrow your search to a specific time range, or since a particular year and only look at more recent papers.  

You can also remove citations, which removes references to papers of interest in books or other papers.

3. Getting the paper
What if you've found a paper that looks interesting, but which isn't shown as a pdf in your search results?

The first thing to do is to read the abstract on the journal homepage.  This should be a summary of what the researchers did, and what they've found.  There will often be enough detail for you to decide if you actually want to read the paper.  Some journals will also allow you to 'look inside' which provides a longer extract of the article.

 

If the abstract looks interesting, then you will want to get hold of the paper.  However, I suspect that you, like me, might balk at paying £29.95 to read it. Thankfully, you don't need to pay.

Every article will have a link to the authors and their email address. It is a simple matter to choose one of the names - probably the first one* - and contact them by email to politely ask for a copy of their paper.

I have found that, when emailed, researchers are more than happy to send you a pdf copy of their article, and sometimes will send other possibly relevant papers. 

So there you have it.  An easy way of getting hold of research papers, even if you don't have university access.


*The order in which the names are written on a research paper is a complex matter of hierarchy depending on who did what.  Exactly how the order is determined depends on the research field, but in general, the person named first did most of the work, and the person named last is the professor or principal investigator.

Joined up thinking

The government have now published the draft of the performance indicators for primary schools at KS1 and KS2 and are consulting on them.

Looking at them, I'm not entirely sure why it took quite so long to produce them - unless it's because the people responsible spend the whole time going 'Oh my, this is going to be hard to do well'. And then they just published a list of what children should be able to do at the end of each KS, which looks almost, but not quite, exactly like the statements in the National curriculum itself.  Michael Tidd (@MichaelT1979) has already blogged about the fact that the performance indicators appear to be levels in all but name, so I won't grumble about them here. 

However, I've been looking at the science descriptors, and there are a couple of things that struck me.

Key Stage 1.
The working scientifically section says:

"While studying the content of biology, chemistry and physics a pupil at the national standard is able to work scientifically by using first-hand practical experiences and a wide range of sources of information to develop an understanding of a range of scientific ideas."

The topics in KS 1 are as follows:
Year 1: Plants; Animals, including humans; Everyday materials; Seasonal changes.
Year 2: Living things and their habitats; Plants; Animals, including humans; Use of everyday materials.

As you can see, physics is distinctly lacking in the list of topics in the NC itself.  Nor does the word appear in the performance indicators.  Instead we have:

Chemistry - Changes in materials

- describe how the shapes of some solid materials can be changed by applying a force.

Hmmm, not really sure that this is actually chemistry.
In a way, I'm pleased, because I have been telling primary teachers that they can sneak forces (pushes, pulls, twists etc) into KS1 using the 'Use of everyday materials' section. (I particularly like the Big Bad Wolf activity in this Teachers TV video).

But Forces as part of Chemistry? Really?

Key Stage 2.
Again, my issue is with the working scientifically section.
Pupils are able to:
recall and use appropriate terminology when working scientifically (at least: accurate, conclusion, evidence, fair test, prediction, reliable, supports (evidence), variable, unit)

Here I take issue with 'reliable'.

A few years back the ASE, in consultation with the metrology institutes in the UK, published a book called 'The Language of Measurement'.  This came about because different exam boards were using terminology differently (and sometimes inconsistently between A-level and GCSE specifications in the same board).  The Language of Measurement therefore puts forward a standard list of terminology that can be used when discussing 'working scientifically'.  All the exam boards have signed up to this, and all the new GCSE and A-level specifications take the recommendations into account.  You can find a sample of the booklet here, or purchase the full booklet here.

So, why the problem with 'reliable'.  Well, this is what the authors say:

"The word ‘reliability’ has posed particular difficulties because it has an everyday usage and had been used in school science to describe raw data, data patterns and conclusions, as well as information sources. On the strong advice of the UK metrology institutes, we avoid using the everyday word ‘reliability’, because of its ambiguity. For data, the terms ‘repeatable’ and ‘reproducible’ are clear and therefore better. For conclusions from an experiment, evaluative statements can mention ‘confidence’ in the quality of the evidence.

pg 6. Language of Measurement

So, pupils in primary school will be taught about 'reliability'.  And then they'll go to secondary school where they will be taught that use of the concept of reliability will lose them marks in tests and exams and that they should use repeatable (same person, same equipment, same results) and reproducible (different person, different equipment, same finding/outcome).

There's nothing like joined up thinking in government.  And this is indeed, nothing like joined up thinking.

Should you be intending to reply to the consultation, please feel free to point out these two examples of the disconnect between the different aspects of the curriculum reform.

And if you're a primary school teacher, please do feel free to teach your children the idea of repeatable and reproducible.  It kind of makes sense.

What's the point of surds?

I spent some time on Wednesday and Thursday at the North East Skills event with Think Physics.  We were there with 'spinning things' - gyroscopes, tops, plates, yo-yo's and a giant gyro-ride.  The event is aimed at young people between 14-25, though most are between 14-19. During the day schools brought groups of young people, and on Wednesday evening it was open to the general public (i.e. parents who brought their kids along).

Our stand at a quiet time.

Our aim was to show the visitors to the event the physics behind a simple toy, and then link that with the uses of that in their lives.  It seemed to work. There were a number of lovely 'woah' moments when we showed gyroscopes balancing on pen tips, or hanging horizontally from a piece of string.  We linked the toys to the GCSE curriculum (by analogy with Newton's first law*), and to life (artificial horizon on planes, direction systems in satellites etc).  

As well as that, we spent time talking with kids and parents about choices at A-level and beyond.  Because we weren't at the event trying to recruit for any particular organisation, we were able to give fairly independent advice.

At one point on Wednesday evening, when it was a little quieter, two girls (Yr 11) came to our stand, attracted by the plate spinning.  They spent some time working at getting the plates spinning, all the time chatting away like a comedy double act.  My colleague and I talked about school, lessons and what they wanted to do with their lives.  At one point during the discussion, they started ranting about their maths lessons.  They both said they enjoyed their maths, particularly algebra, but 'What's the point of surds?' they asked.  'Do you know what they are?', 'Have you ever needed to use them?'.  'We asked out teacher (who's lovely), but she couldn't tell us what they were for.  What is the point?  Why are we learning about them? When will we ever use them?'

I answered them: 'You might never use them' (Hah, knew it! they both said). 'But,' I continued, 'what you will use, is the skills that you've developed while learning about surds. The fact that you can identify important information to answer questions, that you can handle numbers, that you can work through problems to get to a solution. Those skills you'll use.

'When you go to apply for a job - those are the skills your boss will care about. Not that you can do surds, but that you've got the skills to do so.

'But the thing is. You can only develop those skills by learning stuff. By doing problems with surds.  That's the use of surds. Not that they are useful in themselves, but the skills you get from learning about them - that's why you learn about surds.'

The girls were convinced! 'Why didn't our teacher tell us that? That would have made sense.'

And the moral of the story?

I'm not sure, to be honest.  But perhaps we don't need to always justify our subjects in terms of usefulness in 'real life'.  Maybe relevance isn't always about where a child will make use of a particular topic. Perhaps we sometimes need to spell out the (thinking) skills that are being developed through the subject.

Annie, winding the string onto a gyroscope again.

Comparing A-level Physics 2015 Update

UPDATE Feb 2015:

Ned Prideaux has helpfully updated the spreadsheet using the accredited specs.
He has also included boundary data (from the 2014 series) from Ronan McDonald which may be of interest as well.

The document is online as a google doc and is best downloaded into Excel for viewing.


The exam boards have published their draft specifications for the A-level sciences - albeit with huge caveats about them not yet being accredited by Ofqual.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

@Bio_Joe has helpfully put together a comparison for the A-level biology specs, so I've used his basic structure and done the same for the Physics.

AQA, Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas have produced one specification each - although Edexcel still have the spec repeated so that you can teach by concept or context (though the exam is the same however you teach it).  AQA haven't included a context driven approach in their spec, but will be providing a scheme of work to show how you could do this using the published specification.  OCR has produced two specs, including Advancing Physics, whch are examined using different exams.

Co-teaching.
Most of the boards have arranged topics so that the AS and the first few A-level topics are the same.  Interestingly, WJEC Eduqas hasn't, and the topics are in slightly different orders for each year.  I don't think that will be a bit issue, but it will need a bit of thinking about when planning the teaching.

Multiple choice.
Both AQA and Pearson Edexcel have included some multiple choice questions in the assessment model.

Practical work.
All the boards have, as required, specified practical work that must be carried out for the practical endorsement. There is some overlap in the practicals (for example g by freefall and Young (or Young's) modulus appear in all the specs.  AQA and OCR have stopped at the minimum of 12 practical.  This includes 'Research skills' for OCR and allows students to explore a physics topic they are interested in via books and 'tinternet.Edexcel have included 16 practicals as their minimum. 

WJEC Eduqas have specified far more practicals than the other boards (including for example investigation of radioactive decay via a dice analogy or determination of h using LEDs) which would provide a really nice skeleton of a practical teaching scheme.  To be honest, even if you don't choose this spec, it's worth having a look at the practical work they suggest to help you plan as there are some good straightforward ideas in there.

It's quite a big document so I've resorted to a google spreadsheet.  Please feel free to use, with acknowledgement.

What practical assessment?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a high stakes accountability system will tend to prevent accurate teacher assessment.  Or at least, that is what Ofqual and the exam boards would like us believe.

Having talked to many teachers about controlled assessment (and having been involved in supervising coursework) I think that actually Ofqual and the exams boards are probably correct.  Current controlled assessment measures very little of a student's ability to skillfully carry out practical work, and is overly focussed on one (or at most two) practical experiences.  The time taken to ensure that the whole class completes the appropriate work, with the appropriate supervision eats into the time that could be used to teach content, or do other practical work.  (And involves numerous catch-up sessions after school and during holidays if my child's experience of year 11 science coursework is anything to go by). 

So Ofqual have, at one fell swoop, removed teacher assessed practical work from A-levels from 2015.  Instead, students will be expected to develop 12 practical skill sets through carrying out a minimum of 12 named practicals.  The skills are the same for all exam boards, but they are free to choose their own practicals.  The skills are given in appendix 5c of the subject criteria, but until the draft specifications are published (towards the end of June) we won't know what the practicals are.

Helen Rogerson published a blog outlining her view on the loss of practical assessment and I think that she makes a very good point. 

But...

What if the removal of examined practical assessment means that teachers will stop doing practical work?  If we don't assess practical work, then even though teachers think that it is educationally desirable, they might stop doing it.  Senior leaders might decide that if practical work isn't assessed then why spend large part amounts of money on science equipment and consumables?

This appears to be the view of the Wellcome trust, various university academics and SCORE.  

Again, I can see why they are worried.  It may be that practical science becomes limited to the 12 named practicals in the specs - much like the teaching of English literature appears to be limited to the books named in the new GCSE specs.  Teachers will plan for, and teach, only the practicals that they have to provide evidence of the students carrying out.  On the other hand, anecdotal evidence from teachers who have switched from GCSE sciences to iGCSE sciences have said that the removal of controlled assessment work has led to an increase in the amount of practical work that they do.

Before we can start to discuss the effect of the changes to practical work it would be helpful to know what practical work A-level students currently do.  Michael Gove and Ofqual have referred to reports of Universities complaining that A-levels don’t prepare students well enough for university.  It may be that, in some schools, practical work has already reduced to only that required to complete the controlled assessment part of the course.

In schools like that, it may be that having to do 12 practicals over the space of 2 years might actually be an improvement.

Without data though, we just don’t know.

To that end, I am intending to carry out some preliminary research into what practical work in science (and particularly physics) is currently planned and carried out at A-level in a number of local educational establishments.  I’m hoping that I will be able to revisit the schools as the changes to A-levels are made and see how they are responding to the new structure.

Watch this space!

A long way to go.

For my birthday I was given a voucher for a back massage and a manicure.  So this morning, I went to have both. 

The young woman, Rachel*, who was doing the back massage looked vaguely familiar.  However, as I still live in the town where I taught, there are a large number of young people that I think that about.  Either I’ve taught them, or I saw them around the school.  I’ve tried to stop looking quizzically at older teenagers and twenty-somethings though, because it does get me some funny looks.

Anyway, after my back massage, I had my nails done.  This was a whole new experience.  My nailcare routine consists of trying , and failing, not to bite my nails when they inevitably snag.  (A fact that was quite obvious, and my lack of nail care routine caused a look of horror to flit across Rachel’s face.) 

It turns out that, like having your hair done, having your nails done is quite a social thing where you discuss the inevitable questions such as the weather, weekend plans and what you do for a living.

Rachel and I discussed my job, and my current commute and also my new job which I’ll be starting at the end of June.  The aim of my new role will be to encourage kids to see that doing science is worthwhile and attainable.

Which led onto a discussion about what Rachel did at school (and it turns out that I did know her) and how she had enjoyed science, particularly Biology.   In fact, she said that if she wasn’t a beauty  therapist she would do something with biology.  Then she asked a question that knocked me for six.

‘But,’ she asked, ‘what can you do in science apart from work in a lab or teach?’

Gosh.  We have a long way to go.  Here was a young woman who, to do her job, requires an in depth knowledge of anatomy and physiology, who thought that science was only used in a lab.

I pointed this out to her, and she agreed that she did use a knowledge of biology in her job.

This anecdotal evidence about lack of careers knowledge backs up the findings of a number of reports published in the last 18 months.  Ofsted, ASPIRES (pdf), the PearsonThinktank, and Gatsby have all looked at the quality of careers provision and made recommendations about how it can be improved.

The ASPIRES project at Kings College London give the following recommendations amongst others:

o         earlier intervention – from primary school

o         break the ‘science = scientist’ link

o         embed STEM careers awareness in science lessons

The Gatsby Good Careers guidance report also mentions this link between curriculum and careers and recommend that:

“All teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. STEM subject teachers should highlight the relevance of STEM subjects for a wide range of future career paths.”

When I am running courses, I try to include a session about the importance of science teachers in linking school science to the world of work.  The current state of specialist careers advice is very poor in many schools and if teachers don’t tell kids what they can do with a science qualification then they won’t ever find out. 

I’m not suggesting a hard sell, but if you’re teaching neutralisation reactions, then highlight that these practical skills are needed in the pharmaceutical industry.  If you’re teaching balanced forces, highlight that structural engineers use the same theory to carry out calculations to ensure that buildings don’t fall down.  If you’re teaching about the body in primary school, then you could ask a beauty therapist to come in and talk to the children about their job and how they need to know all about the skeleton and muscles.

If teachers don’t know what jobs are available with a science qualification then these websites might be useful:

Futuremorph

Talent 2030

NHS Careers

National STEM centre careers collection

RCUK Careers in research

National Careers service

So, if you are a teacher highlight links between the curriculum and possible careers.  If you don’t, who will? 

*not her real name.

The future of assessment?

Levels are ‘over-complicated, vague and unambitious’. So the government have scrapped them. 

Unfortunately, up until now, they didn’t really provide any information about what was going to replace them.  And in the absence of that information, many schools have decided to stick with levels for the time being.

But now we have the information.  Or rather, now we have brief descriptions of the models from nine schools that have been chosen to receive money from the assessment innovation fund.  Each of the schools will get up to £10,000 to turn their assessment models into packages which other schools can use.

Those schools chosen are 2 primary, 1 primary/secondary, 4 secondary and 2 special schools. 

When I first read through the descriptions of the assessment packages, I must confess to (a) being a little disappointed and (b) wishing that I had applied with the model that a colleague and I are developing for use in primary.  Many of the packages sound very much like a combination of formative assessment (including self-assessment booklets) and end-of-topic tests.  A couple focus on ‘skills’ and abilities (primary and special school) while others focus on curriculum content or topics (secondary). 

All very reasonable ways of identifying the progress a pupil has made, and reporting it to others but nothing really innovative.

The DfE have also produced a set of core assessment principles.  This states that:

Schools will be expected to demonstrate (with evidence) their assessment of pupils’ progress, to keep parents informed, to enable governors to make judgements about the school’s effectiveness, and to inform Ofsted inspections.

 

So, what can we determine about acceptable assessment models from the short descriptions given in the DfE press release?  

The models include:

·         skills passports

·         ladders of curriculum content to climb

·         formative assessment which allows students to improve and develop their understanding

·         students assigned to levels of mastery / understanding

·         end of topic tests to provide numerical data

Looking at the ideas described, I think that we can probably summarise the models as:

Primary and Special schools: 

Can the kids do stuff? Can they do more stuff than last half-term?

Secondary Schools

Do the kids know stuff? Do the kids know more stuff than they did last half-term? 

So what should you do when replacing levels?  The concept of backward planning (as ably demonstrated by York Science for KS3) seems to be a good starting point.  

• First of all, decide what you want pupils to do or know
• Then, decide what evidence would let you know this
• Finally, plan your teaching experiences (lesson plans, schemes of learning etc).

In your teaching experiences include opportunities for formative assessment and summative assessment.  These assessment opportunities should make use of the evidence of learning that you have previously identified.  Think about what an 'average' student should be able to do/know, or a student who isn't quite there, or one who is well ahead.

The models picked from the Assessment Innovation Fund have aspects of these principles included, but they aren't overly complicated.  The models look different, and will be used in different ways*. However, they all allow assessment (formative and summative) tracking and reporting of progress.   

And there you have it . . .assessment without levels.

 *Which will perhaps be comforting when it comes to explaining your own assessment model to Ofsted.  Though it might make things much harder for Ofsted when it comes to looking at data.

....................................................

More details about each school assessment model are:

Hillyfield Primary Academy, London (primary)	Skills passport in foundation subjects throughout KS1 and KS2.  On demonstrating mastery of a skill, children stamp the skill in the passport. Longer term, school will develop an app that can be used in class by teachers
Hiltingbury Junior school, Hampshire (primary)	‘ladder’ approach to maths, reading and writing. School agrees expectations for each year group, dividing each subject into key skill areas. Children use a ‘ladder booklet’. Steps are divided into areas of exploring, achieving, exceeding
West Exe technology College, Exeter (primary and secondary)	‘ladder’ approach with objectives driven by curriculum content. Each objective is a short, discrete, qualitative and concrete description of what a student is expected to know and be able to do within a specific subject area and topic. Formative and summative (end of topic) assessments are used. Moderated by experienced professionals to ensure consistency.
Westminster Academy, London (Secondary)	Percentage score system to reflect a student’s mastery.  Curriculum divided into discrete topics (about 15 per year) each assessed by in-class quite, homework and end-of-term exam.  Overall score derived from performance for each topic, with an average produced to cover all topics.
Trinity Academy, Halifax (Secondary)	Curriculum broken down into units (categorised as foundation, elementary, intermediate or advanced).  Students complete a test to ascertain their degree of mastery.  Level of success places them at a point within a category: no progress, expected progress, exceptional progress.
Durrington High School, West Sussex (Secondary)	School used KS2 date and other assessments in year 7 (CATs, reading tests, internal tests) to groups students into 4 thresholds based on their prior assessments: excellence, secure, developing and foundation. Formative feedback provided based on day-to-day work. Summative assessments (half termly/termly) are used to  further assess how well students are doing.
Sirius Academy, Hull (Secondary)	Focussed on D&T only. Not clear what is actually involved in the assessment system.
Swiss Cottage School, London (Special School)	Progression planners. Themed around priority areas for individuals with severe learning difficulties and consistent with principles and ethos of the new NC.
Frank Wise school, Banbury (Special School)	Series of assessments that screen the level of development of basic cognitive skills.