SGFS - Our Approach to Assessment & Feedback

Assessment & Feedback at South Gosforth First School

Assessment & Feedback - SGFS Intent Statement

At South Gosforth First School, our approach to assessment and feedback is underpinned by the evidence of best practice from the Education Endowment Foundation, DfE case studies and guidance and other educational research as well as research from cognitive science regarding what types of feedback have the most impact on pupils’ learning. We have considered the research described in ‘Embedded Formative Assessment’ (Wiliam 2018), which describes the main purpose of feedback being that it should move the pupils’ learning forward. Wiliam reports the power of effective feedback can be so great that the study demonstrated that ‘students receiving the constructive feedback…learned in one week what the other students took two weeks to learn.’ From this we seek to ensure that our feedback enables pupils to identify what they have done well and cause them to think hard in order to move their learning forward.  His work also describes that ‘whether the teacher gives feedback orally or in writing is much less important than the fact that (the children were) given time…to use the feedback to improve their work’.  We use a range of formative assessment strategies in all lessons to elicit information about what the pupils know and provide feedback that the pupils can then act upon.

We are mindful of the workload implications of written marking on teachers. The Department of Education’s research has emphasised that feedback should be: meaningful, manageable and motivating and we seek to adhere to these principles in our approaches to feedback for pupils in school.  Advice from the NCETM is that the most important activity for teachers is the teaching itself, supported by the design and preparation of engaging lessons, aided by appropriate assessment for learning (both formative and summative).

Our policy on feedback has, at its core, a number of principles:

·      The sole focus of any feedback should be to further children’s learning and understanding

·      Feedback should empower children to take responsibility for improving their own work

·      Children should always receive some form of feedback within the lesson itself.

·      Time is set aside to enable pupils to consider and respond to feedback

·      Feedback is provided to pupils as part of assessment processes in the classroom, and takes a number of forms

·      Feedback forms part of the school’s wider assessment process, which aim to produce an appropriate level of challenge for pupils in lessons, allowing them to make good progress.

Assessment & Feedback - SGFS Implementation

Our feedback and assessment policy can be broken down into 2 parts.

1.   Formative Assessment – At the point of teaching, ‘encompassing all those activities undertaken by teachers and pupils which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged’ (Black and Wiliam 1998)

2.   Summative Assessment – Tasks planned to give teachers a view of learning over time and at the end of a sequence of teaching

You can read more about our full approach to assessment and feedback across our curriculum in our 'Assessment & Feedback Policy' below: