9 replies to this topic

[Miss Smith]

I've been set a task by HoD to come up with some child friendly versions of the NC levels for sticking in books/displaying on walls before our department gets assessed. Before I try to do this myself I thought I'd send out a plea to anyone who has this or something similar that I could perhaps manipulate.

Your help in this would be appreciated

Sarah

[]

Edited by Miss Smith, 29 March 2006 - 08:09 PM.

[Dan Moorhouse]

Try my assessment section there are several in there as well as a number of target setting sheets and a powerpoint all aimed at doing exactly what you've been asked to sort out.

[Ed Waller]

Try my assessment section there are several in there as well as a number of target setting sheets and a powerpoint all aimed at doing exactly what you've been asked to sort out.

I can recommend these - I can't remember the number of times I've plagiarised from these resources

[Dan Moorhouse]

The section only exists so that I can acknowledge the sources of my own plagarism! Roy's powerpoint is great for display purposes - we stick that on the wall and use t as a presentation at the start of the year.

[Andrew Field]

Two potentially significant points here though.

When putting together level requirements or student-friendly level descriptors, it is much better to put the ideas together as a department. Set aside 20 minutes to come up with the student friendly levels yourselves. The process you have to go through will force all teachers to consider what you all personally feel equates to the different levels and will actually produce a much more effective solution.

Secondly, it is much better to examine not what makes a particular level, but rather what a student needs to do to jump to the next level. This is pretty much the same thing! However, at an ICT meeting I was at on Friday someone suggested an obvious idea that I'd never considered. Why start at the bottom and work up? Why not model what makes a great answer - a Level 7 answer - and make it clear what such a level is. You can then mark students work as Level 7, but then go down the levels as you spot where they haven't reached the criteria.

This struck me as a different and potentially more positive way of supporting students to raise their levels, but much more importantly enable each student to improve their own standard of work. The key thing is that each student knows what they need to do to improve their work. Once comments and conversations focus on this, the actual level a student is on is a simply by-product that can largely (until the final KS3 submission) be ignored.

[JohnDClare]

...it is much better to examine not what makes a particular level, but rather what a student needs to do to jump to the next level...

THIS, of course, Andrew, is the key to AfL!
Please excuse me for repeating this link, but the taxonomy I use for this with the pupils is this one, which I also use as the marksheme for the pupils' assessments..
It is at the same time a way of marking with the mqaximum of speed, the NC levels in pupil-speak, and an indication of what they have to do to get to the next level.
And - from practice - I know that it works.

[Andrew Field]

...it is much better to examine not what makes a particular level, but rather what a student needs to do to jump to the next level...

THIS, of course, Andrew, is the key to AfL!
Please excuse me for repeating this link, but the taxonomy I use for this with the pupils is this one, which I also use as the marksheme for the pupils' assessments..
It is at the same time a way of marking with the mqaximum of speed, the NC levels in pupil-speak, and an indication of what they have to do to get to the next level.
And - from practice - I know that it works.

This guide is great - but I still thoroughly recommend that the history department as a whole can spend time to examine, develop and critique their own versions. It creates much more shared ownership, a much more effective tool that each member of staff knows they have contributed towards. It then becomes something that has a much greater worth to staff and consequently students. The process also highlights just how ridiculous and tricky it really is to level students accurately, and thus forces teachers towards more effective Assessment for Learning rather than Assessment for Assessment.

[Dan Moorhouse]

In terms of modelling the levels and skills its easy to show them what work at whatever standard looks like. Go to the NC Action website and you can download materials and commentaries of work at each level.

[Dan Lyndon]

I have linked in Bloom's Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking with the History Critical Steps so you are welcome to have a copy. You can download it from comptonhistory.com here

[Miss Smith]

Thanks very much everybody who contributed here, I'm sure I can take a lot of this to the next department meeting where we will be able to draw up our own version.

Thanks.