Formative Assessment	Summative Assessment
Continuous process of checking pupil’s understanding, on multiple occasions within every lesson Embedded as an integral part of teaching practice Referred to at Northgate as ‘Responsive Teaching’ Identifies gaps in knowledge and informs planning and adjustments to teaching	Accurate, rigorous and moderated assessments at the end of a unit or term Usually half-termly or termly Confirms and quantifies what we should already know about students’ attainment and progress Used to make a judgement on attainment

 

1. Formative Assessment or ‘Responsive Teaching’

                 

The rationale:

• “Pupils do not (necessarily) learn what we teach them” (D. William)
• “The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him [or her] accordingly” (Ausubel)

The purpose:

• To check pupils’ understanding effectively and identify and close gaps in knowledge
• To check pupils’ understanding in order to inform subsequent planning
• Be responsive teachers; using meaningful data, gathered efficiently and effectively, to adapt teaching within lessons and over a sequence of lessons

A ‘cluster’ of WALKTHRU strategies have been identified as effective ways for teachers to check understanding effectively. Teachers should make these strategies their ‘default mode’ of questioning.

 

At Northgate, we are ‘Responsive Teachers’. All formative assessment should be responded to with timely, effective feedback and should be acted on within every lesson and in future planning. Assessment will not lead to improvement unless it is accompanied by this level of response

Adapted from ‘Simplicitus: The Interconnected Primary Curriculum & Effective Subject Leadership’ (E. Turner)

Examples of how this might look in practice:

Assessment	Feedback	Action
WALKTHRU strategies	Verbal or Written Individual, group or whole-class Peer/Self-assessment Instant is most effective	Extra guided practice Additional scaffolding Deepening tasks Adjusted planning for next lesson(s)

 

The difference between Performance and Learning

It is important to acknowledge the difference between learning and performance:

Learning	Performance
A permanent change in long-term memory; if they can’t remember it, they haven’t learnt it!   Learned knowledge can be remembered far away from the first point of instruction and applied in multiple, novel contexts	A child’s ability to recall information and demonstrate understanding at the point of learning   A poor indicator of whether a child has learned something

The smart move then is to provide multiple opportunities to assess children’s understanding far away from the point of instruction.

Spaced Retrieval: Can children remember key knowledge? Has it been learned?

Retrieval practice is an integral part of our assessment strategy, providing opportunities for assessing understanding at a distance from the first point of learning. We also know that assessments can serve as powerful learning events for children through the process of retrieval.

 

Retrieval should be used as the example below to enable teachers to assess students’ retention of core knowledge.

 

Lesson starters should always provide opportunities for spaced retrieval to:

1) Interrupt the forgetting; allowing children to revisit and remember core knowledge, reinforcing their memory through the ‘testing effect’

2) Give teachers an opportunity to check children’s understanding of core knowledge throughout a unit of learning, allowing them to respond by adapting planning and teaching

3) Support teachers in assessing children’s learning at a distance from the first point of learning: ‘Has a change occurred in their long-term memory’?

(See the DNA Teaching & Learning Framework for guidance on effective retrieval practice)

Assessment and Curriculum Design

“Great assessment and great curriculum are two sides of the same coin. You can’t clearly work out how well pupils are learning unless you have an equally clear map of what you want them to learn” (D. Weston)

Core knowledge is identified on unit plans. Identifying this knowledge enables any assessment to be focussed on what we need children to learn. Teachers should:

• Know what the core knowledge is that students must learn
• Plan in time to assess students’ retention of this knowledge in lessons where appropriate
• Check understanding continuously during lessons, using research-backed WALKTHRU strategies
• Retrieve core knowledge regularly during lesson starters
• Adapt planning if retrieval or revisits reveal gaps in knowledge

An example of a unit plan, which specifies core knowledge. Teachers should focus their formative assessments and retrievals on this knowledge

 

The Northgate curriculum is designed as a spiral: deliberately revisiting key concepts. Long term plans and unit plans show which concepts children have learned before that are being revisited in their current topic. This means:

• Children have another opportunity to retrieve key knowledge and apply to a new, more complex context
• Teachers have further opportunities to assess children’s understanding of key concepts at a distance from the first point of learning 

 

Key ingredients of Responsive Teaching at Northgate

 

 

Tracking Formative Assessment

Formative assessment trackers for wider curriculum subjects provide a snapshot for teachers of children’s understanding of the core knowledge they need to learn. The trackers are designed to:

• Maintain focus on the core knowledge for each subject
• Provide a systematic, time-efficient method of collating assessment data
• Inform next steps for teaching and planning
• Support teachers to be ‘responsive’, ensuring that the specified core knowledge is understood by all

• Core knowledge that is initially understood by All would still be retrieved at a later date because of what we know about memory
   
• If knowledge is initially understood by Most, teachers may decide to plan a structured and scaffolded retrieval session, an intervention for the small number of pupils who did not securely understand or commit further lesson time to re-teach knowledge if consolidation would benefit the class

• If knowledge is only understood by Some, teachers should feel unrestrained to adapt the sequence of learning and spend a lesson or part of a lesson re-teaching the pupils. Deepening opportunities should be offered to the few pupils who have already grasped the knowledge being re-taught.

2. Summative Assessment

The purpose:

• To confirm and quantify what we should already know through effective formative assessment
• To make accurate, rigorous and moderated judgements of attainment and progress at the end of a unit or term
• To identify trends in data that guide school improvement

Termly Teacher Assessments

At the end of every term, teachers make one of the following judgements on pupils’ attainment in Reading, Writing and Maths:

GD	Working at the greater depth standard
ARE	Working at age-related expectations
JB	Working just below age-related expectations

If a child is working significantly below age-related expectations, teachers should use the programme of study they are currently accessing alongside one of the above judgements.
For example:

A child in year 5 who is working significantly below and meeting expectations in the year 3 programme of study

3ARE

Informing Teacher Assessments

Summative judgements are well-informed by a number of methods to ensure accuracy and consistency.

 

How summative assessments are used

 

Pupil Progress Reviews

All teachers meet with senior leaders every term to discuss progress and attainment. Here, current attainment is compared to pupils’ attainment from previous key stages and specific pupils are identified as needed extra support in certain subjects.

Analysis of Data Trends

Class teachers, subject leaders and senior leaders analyse the data produced by summative assessments to:

• Identify any particular groups of pupils that need support
• Spot patterns and trends in data and in pupil groups over time
• Inform whole-school initiatives and guide future implementations#

Setting Future Provisions

Following pupil progress reviews and data analysis, teachers are able to adapt current provisions or identify new provisions to be included in the timetable to meet the needs of any pupils who are at risk of falling behind. Provisions set out should seek to support and challenge those pupils with additional needs whilst maintaining the inclusive culture of the school.