Refining assessment without levels

Teaching: Leading Learning

One of the first things I’ve been involved with in my new post has been the development of assessment without levels. It’s been strange for me to move back to a school still using them! I’m teaching Year 7 English and I’ve had to re-learn (temporarily at least!) the levels system to assess their assignments. What struck me particularly was the way learning gets lost when you hand back assignments with levels on them. I’d been so used to handing work back with formative comments only over the last two years that I was quite unprepared for the buzz of “what did you get?”, fist-pumping triumph when a Level 5.6 was awarded (“I was only 5.3 last time!”) and disappointment on the flip side. I had to work really hard to focus the students on my carefully crafted formative feedback and DIRT tasks – and I know that some of…

View original post 1,023 more words