You may well have read or heard of Black and Wiliam's "Inside the Black Box" which gathers together their findings on best practice in formative assessment, but have you seen this little gem? It's only twenty pages long, but I recently heard one PT describe it as "twenty pages of gold".What I like about it most is that they begin by looking at the nature and aims of English teaching, and discuss the difficulties of assessing a subject which has two very different faces: the technical and the imaginative. The answer to this, Black and Wiliam decide, lies in the development of English teacher's judgements. This highlights the importance of frequent moderation and discussion.
They go on to look at the four main aspects of formative assessment which have been proved to raise pupil achievement and develop lifelong learners:
- Classroom talk (including questioning)
- Feedback
- Sharing learning intentions/ success criteria with the learner
- Peer and self-assessment
but before you sigh in memory of some whole-school AifL inset, they discuss these with relevant examples from the English classroom, and suggest many little things you might try to involve pupils more in their own learning.
Who currently does the most work in your lessons: you or the pupils? If the balance is all wrong, give one or two of the ideas in this little book a try.
There should be a copy in school, but if not you can obtain them at £5.00 each by emailing the publisher at:
Leave a comment if you have any thoughts on this publication or can recommend any others...
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