Embedding Formative Assessment programme

An Education Endowment Foundation randomised control trial with 25,000 pupils in 140 schools across England found:

• learners made the equivalent of two months’ additional progress in their Attainment 8 GCSE score
• learners in the lowest third for prior attainment made more progress than their classmates in the top third
• teachers felt the Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs) improved their practice by allowing valuable dialogue between teachers and encouraged experimentation with formative assessment strategies

The programme lasts two years from your starting point. In each year there will be 8 workshops. 75 minutes must be allowed for each workshop. Time must be planned between workshops to enable teachers to work collaboratively and give feedback on techniques observed in lessons.

Teacher change takes time. The programme focuses on teachers being given choice, flexibility, small steps, accountability and support to effect long-term habit change. Initially, schools reported an increased prevalence of formative assessment techniques and improved student engagement, but effectiveness and impact on student outcomes is a longer term goal. One year, simply isn’t enough.

This is a whole-school programme. All teachers should be a member of a TLC group.

Over the two years, Dylan Wiliams’ five strategies for formative assessment will be covered. These include:

Each school will have an expert EFA mentor who will work with you for two years. This support includes:

• Practical planning support for readiness
• An initial day’s training in-school or online for school leaders and pre-selected TLC Leaders. Note, this is not an all staff training day
• Regular email/telephone contact with your mentor with key reflection and planning points
• Two face to face visits at the end of year one and two to review the programme and plan the next steps in implementation
• A wide breadth of additional supporting resources, exemplars and case studies which can be used to support and maximise the impact of the programme

We would advise a group size of around 10, groups may need to be as low as 8 or as high as 14 depending on school circumstances.

Yes. Many schools involve support staff in the programme. These staff can either form part of the TLC groups with teachers where you feel they would be comfortable and confident to share their practice. Another option is to form a TLC of only these staff to allow discussions to become more focused on their role.

Yes, it is integral to the success of the programme that they follow the agendas provided. Some adaptations may be made, but these must be discussed with your EFA mentor to prevent lethal mutations of the programme. However, teachers have choice as to what formative assessment technique they wish to work on in their own classrooms to develop their practice.

TLC Leaders should be voluntary and ideally not members of the senior leadership team. Their role is to facilitate the sessions. They are not expected to be experts in formative assessment and may be at any point in their career. They will lead and participate in all of the TLC activities.

Internal monitoring and evaluation of the programme will be supported by your EFA mentor and is an essential element of the implementation of the programme. This would form part of your usual monitoring of T&L. The resource contains pro-formas for peer observations and learning walks. Externally, the evaluation team may ask you to complete student/teacher surveys or also be part of group interviews. These will be done at a time convenient to you.

This will always be a challenge in schools. Where possible, all staff should attend all meetings. However, this isn’t always possible so we recommend giving staff who can’t attend sessions a ‘buddy’ from the group that can support them in sharing discussions and learning. Recordings from the sessions are also available on the final handout so these can be watched at anytime.

This will happen over the course of the programme. We recommend that every TLC group has two TLC Leaders, either as co-leaders, or with a deputy lead.

The five key strategies of formative assessment are identified in the table above. The techniques that can be used to enact these strategies in the classroom are, for example; no hands up, exit tickets etc.