Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap”

Recently I have been looking again at the issue of marking. It is a hugely important source of feedback provided that we keep the volume of marking in proportion to the level of impact it can have in improving learning outcomes. I’ve discussed this in a much-read earlier post: Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective. Marking time again. To help with our search I was fortunate to be able to arrange a visit to the wonderful Saffron Walden County High School, a thriving, dynamic school in NW Essex that recently received an astonishing OfSTED report: Outstanding in every detail. The cycle of learning and feedback – with a gap! On our walkabout I dropped in on a Y9 Art lesson where the GCSE course was starting; a couple of Y8 English lessons, a Y7 German lesson and a Y9 History lesson among others. The twilight CPD session revealed that this initiative was still being developed. Closing the gap in Art as a project progresses Closing the gap in Geography Like this:

Hywel Roberts Create Learn Inspire | A journey through curriculum liberation, Mantle of the Expert, pupil voice, great questioning, contextual learning, engagement, independence and other adventures in learning. School Improvement – The Dave Brailsford Model Today there is a great article on the BBC website about the inexorable progress of the Sky cycling team under the expert stewardship of Dave Brailsford – see here. The ‘aggregation of marginal gains approach‘ is now well known and can be easily summarised as identifying those small performance factors that, when aggregated together, can have a significant cumulative impact. This can apply to teachers tweaking their pedagogy to transform their practice; students breaking down their tasks to focus on the constituent parts to improve; or school leaders aligning their school priorities. The article takes the process a step forward by focusing on the key developments for moving from good to outstanding as a team. The first quote from the article that immediately stood out was the following: “You’ll get more from a £900,000 rider with a coach than you would from a £1m rider without one.” This seamlessly applies to a school context. Hone in on the important data: You get what you pay for:

How to move your lessons from good to outstanding | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional Where would I be without Twitter? I have decided to elaborate on this AfL strategy, following this tweet from my @TeacherToolkit account on #ukedchat 3.11.11. My tweet said "#ukedchat Missed out tonight, look forward to reading ideas. Firstly, this concept is not mine. So it is at this point, where I will be honourable and credit a colleague who I think has a money-spinning idea here. The fabulous Mrs Pam Fearnley delivered the session. What is it? It is a simple, yet sophisticated, AfL (Assessment for Learning) questioning technique to help teachers move from good-to-outstanding. Why is it useful? For many reasons. The strategy encouraged teachers to take risks and tease out the "learning" in class. How does it work? I have listed the four-part approach below with additional information that I hope explains the method. • Give the context of your approach to the class. • Insist on hands down before the question is delivered. This is the hard part. • Push the boundaries. Explore! 1. 2. 3.

thoughtweavers | Just another WordPress.com site The Behaviour Guru: Tom Bennett's School Report Welcome to Dylan Wiliam’s website Professional development Finally! The revised Embedding formative assessment pack for schools and colleges to run their own two-year professional development programme on formative assessment is now available worldwide. In Europe, this can be ordered through SSAT, in Australasia through Hawker-Brownlow, and in North America from Learning Sciences International. Further details of the pack are here. Also, a series of high-quality video presentations by Dylan Wiliam, with a total running time of over two and a half hours, is now available world-wide.

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