Assessment Guidance

Assessment for learning

Assessment for learning involves the use of classroom assessment to improve learning. It differs from assessment of learning, which measures what learners know or can do. The aim is to use day-to-day assessment effectively to improve teaching and learning.

Much recent research indicates that effective formative assessment is a key factor in raising students' standards of achievement. It is important that formative assessment:

• is embedded in the teaching and learning process of which it is an essential part
• shares learning goals with students
• helps students to understand and recognise the standards to aim for
• provides feedback which helps students to identify what they should do next to improve
• has a commitment that every student can improve
• involves both teacher and students reviewing and reflecting on performance and progress together
• involves students in self-assessment
  

Planning assessment for learning (formative)
For each unit of work, plan for a variety of assessment opportunities that you can use to assess whether or not your teaching was successful and whether students are making progress. Strategies include: question and answer session, homework exercises, written reports of investigations carried out, research results recorded, a piece of observed practical activity, a piece of designing and making.

For each unit of work you will have selected suitable learning objectives and it is against these that you will assess students. In other words, you will focus in to assess particular aspects of their developing knowledge, skills and understanding, rather than trying to assess the whole of designing and making (capability) in every unit. A simple 3-point scale for assessment is perfectly adequate for this day-to-day assessment. You should keep a record of students' marks in your mark book, or equivalent, and regularly feed back to students about how they are getting on, setting them realistic targets for which to aim next. Click here for a sample proforma spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) that you may either print out for a paper-based record, or to keep electronic records for each of your teaching groups. This has been designed to help teacher and students gain an overview of progress being made over the key stage, rather than keeping separate records for each unit or project.

In terms of expected outcomes for a unit of learning, it is also helpful to write out what you would expect of a student who worked well, reasonably and not-so-well for each unit of work and to use this as a gauge of overall performance across three (or more) levels of expectation. Refer to the FoodForum OK2Cook Units of Work to see examples of this in practice.

Pitching teaching in the right ball park
The table below shows the expected attainment levels that should be taken into account when planning KS3 units of work. Use these as a general rule of thumb and then adjust them according to your school's targets (these take into consideration student ability). In each year of KS3 the vast majority of students in mainstream schools should reach at least the levels shown in the centre column of the table.

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Assessing overall capability (summative)
Every now and then during the key stage you will need to set the students a design and make assignment for which they take the main responsibility. This is their chance to shine - to make use of the knowledge, skill and understanding they have been developing, to demonstrate how capably they can design and make a successful product. To assess a design and make assignment you should use the level descriptions from the National Curriculum document at KS3. At KS4 you can use this same model, but based on Awarding Body criteria instead of National Curriculum levels which do not apply at KS4. Alternatively, you may wish to develop your own criteria based on these.

It is not advisable to ascribe a National Curriculum level to students based on their performance in one design and make assignment alone. Rather, their performance on a number of occasions across D&T should be taken into account. This is where the formative assessment records become important in providing information that indicates the level at which students are operating. For example, students who (on the 3-point formative assessment explained above) are mainly on target in terms of the learning objectives set for them, are likely to be operating at a level 5 if in Y7, a level 6 if Y8 and a level 6/7 if Y9 - because this is what being on target means for each of these milestones during KS3 (see table).

Students formative assessment marks can, therefore, be used to indicate broadly the level at which they are operating. Having first decided which 'ballpark' a student is in, then zoom in and make a 'best fit' assessment according to the level from your selected ballpark that most accurately describes a student's capability. Students do not need to achieve every single word or element of the level description to be awarded that level, but they should 'fit' that description better than any other.

Monitor students' developing capability with them, so that they can recognise their strengths and weaknesses and take a view of the progress they are making. This should be an on-going dialogue. Standardisation of assessment across the design & technology team should be carried out at KS3 - doing so helps in the development of consistency in assessment practice and provides quality assurance for the subject. Otherwise, everyone in the department may be using the same criteria, but applying them to quite different standards, ie. inconsistently.

Further support on assessment in relation to the revised National Curriculum 2008 can be found at:

www.data.org.uk

http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/

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