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To
develop a meaningful marking and feedback
system for maths, parallel to the
systems available for literacy |
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School: St Edmund's Catholic
Primary School |
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Fellow: Joanne Lundy |
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Email: ht.stedmunds.p@talk21.com |
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My Fellowship Year |
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As maths co-ordinator of a
Beacon first school, where test results had
been high for a number of years before beginning
to drop, I was looking for ways to improve
achievement by enhancing learning. Having
completed a book audit, it became quite obvious
that as teachers, we were concentrating on
the coverage of maths objectives rather than
the development and embedding of maths skills;
I found teacher comments referring to coverage,
‘Is this all you did this lesson?’
secretarial skills, ‘Is this your neatest
work?’ and the cover-all, ‘Well
done you have worked well today,’ appeared
across the school, but served no real purpose
and did not provide the children with a way
forward in their maths. This, together with
a comment in our 2002 Ofsted report, that
whilst marking in maths was carried out regularly,
it did not move the children on in their learning,
became the basis of my Gatsby teacher Fellowship;
moving learning on through the purposeful
assessment of children’s maths work.
Prior to starting my fellowship, I had read
the work of Black and Wiliam, (1998). I pinned
my project on 6 of their points: |
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Formative assessment
is the – |
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active involvement of
pupils in their own learning; |
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sharing of learning goals with pupils; |
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use of effective questioning; |
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providing of feedback which leads
to pupils recognising their next steps
and how to take them; |
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adjusting of teaching to take account
of the results of assessment; |
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confidence that every
student can improve, (the ‘untapped
potential’ rather than the ‘fixed
IQ’ belief) |
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I took each of these points
in turn, and set about seeing how they could
be applied to my teaching and the learning
of the children in my class. |
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Planning |
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(Sharing of learning goals
with pupils; use of effective questioning;
adjusting of teaching to take account of the
results of assessment.) |
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Learning goals were made more
explicit and the use of success criteria,
the pointers I would use to aid my marking
of the work, were visible in each lesson so
the children knew exactly what they were expected
to complete during the lesson; how would they
show themselves that they had been successful
in their learning that lesson? |
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Questions have become the central
part of my planning format now, they are actually
written onto the plan along with the learning
goal; I ask questions of the children, they
ask questions of each other and, as importantly,
they ask questions of me. In order that this
questioning is an effective learning experience,
the children in my class are given thinking
time; each child has 10 seconds to find their
response. I have also recently introduced
‘2:30’ time’ in pairs the
children are given 30 seconds to discuss the
possible answers before offering their answer
to the rest of the class. There is no stigma
attached to incorrect answers, they are used
as learning tools. To further develop the
questioning strategies so vital for maths,
I have employed Fermi questions in my class;
this is based on the work of the Italian-American
nuclear physicist and is a way to stimulate
critical thinking and estimation skills. This
has proven very popular and, as the result
of a lesson observation carried out on me
by one of our Primary Advisors, is featuring
in this month’s Suffolk Maths Coordinators
Conference, as are the packs of key questions
I have developed to enable myself, my teaching
assistant and the children in my class to
ask effective questions throughout the lesson! |
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To move away from the element
of coverage and to ensure that I am adjusting
teaching to take account of the results of
assessment, I plan for a four-day week. Friday
is left completely blank and is used to revisit
any areas the children were not secure on
during the week, (Filter Friday) if all learning
was successful during the week, we use this
time to further develop thinking skills within
the maths curriculum. Again this has proven
very successful; the children don’t
leave school on Friday afternoon confused
by a mis-understood concept. |
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Feedback. |
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(Providing feedback which
leads to pupils recognising their next steps
and how to take them) |
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The traffic light system I
set up in my class, allowing each of the children
to let me know how successful they thought
they had been during that lesson has been
far more positive than I initially thought
would be the case. It has developed the children’s
awareness of their learning and of the areas
where they require more support. I have also
recently introduced peer marking, the children
feedback to each other, using the success
criteria we set out at the beginning of the
lesson. Both the traffic light system and
the marking code I introduced for maths have
been ‘adopted’ by teachers around
the school as well as maths coordinators in
our pyramid. |
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Where Are My Class
Now? |
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(Confidence that every child
can improve) |
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The results of my Fellowship
year have been far greater than I had initially
thought they would be. The confidence and
motivation of my class is much higher now
than it was when I started my project in September.
Every child has succeeded in their maths;
they have developed skills they can apply
to learning in any context. My class have
also made greater progress than their peers.
Like many LEAs, Suffolk administers the NFER
series of maths tests to Year 4 children;
we currently have three Year 4 classes. Having
analysed the results of all three classes
and compared with previous standardised data,
my class have improved, on average 4 standardised
points, 3 points above the other classes,
(both teachers have decided to adopt my feedback
strategies for the next academic year). One
child in particular, out of year group and
on a statement for educational difficulties,
achieved a standardised score of 83, the first
time he had had a score that was not a negative
number. |
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Where am I now? |
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I feel that my understanding
of children’s learning has deepened
greatly; teaching is not purely about teaching,
it is about enabling children to learn. I
have had a great many experiences this year
that I would not have had without my Gatsby
fellowship; I have been invited back to London
twice since January to present my fellowship
story. I have been approached with regards
to developing my career further, (although
still in tentative stages). I have been invited
to present my fellowship work to Suffolk’s
Primary Strategy team in July, with a view
to providing INSET to Maths teachers, and
have been nominated to speak at the Suffolk
Head’s Conference in the autumn term.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my Gatsby year;
it has been challenging, successful and rewarding. |
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Reading List. |
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The Value of Fermi Questions,
(Teaching Thinking – Summer 2003,
p.34/35) |
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Fermi Questions Web-sites are many.
Fermi Questions: “Back of the
Envelope Calculations” is one
I have found useful. A Google search
will throw up many more. |
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Questioning in The Context of Mathematics,
(Unlocking Formative Assessment –
Shirley Clarke, p.89/92) |
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Success Criteria, (Enriching Feedback
in the Primary Classroom – Shirley
Clarke, p.33/49) |
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Developing Questioning Skills for
Teaching Assistants, (Red Book Course,
Suffolk LEA) |
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Inside the Black Box
(1998) – Paul Black and Dylan
Wiliam |
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Assessment For Learning,
Beyond the Black Box (1999) –
Assessment Reform Group |
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