Assessment - Reviewing our Curriculum in the light of the Ofsted Research Review

 So far, in posts on Transition, Phonics, Vocabulary, Grammar and Feedback, I think I have concluded that while our department philosophy doesn't match the Ofsted definition, we have a strong enough vision of the big picture to justify what we do. Our focus is on pupils getting better and better at using their language. Speaking and writing with increasing independence, complexity and spontaneity. Ofsted ignore this aspect completely, but in order to achieve it, we do have to tackle many of the things Ofsted say they want us to tackle in terms of progression.

This post is on an aspect where the Ofsted Review has given us serious reason to re-think what we do: Assessment.

We already knew that our KS3 assessments were due for a change, and as soon as the Ofsted Review came out, we started to think through its implications. I have already written about this in a previous post. So if you haven't read it, maybe it would be a good idea to click here and read it first. Then this post is going to be an update on what we have decided to do, along with some drafts of new ideas for assessments.

Here are the main points from the Ofsted Research Review that I identified when I started our departmental review.

Assessments should test what pupils have been taught.

Assessments should help pupils be aware of their progress and make them feel successful.

Assessments should not be too influenced by GCSE.

I am going to concentrate in this post on Listening and Reading assessments. I have written here about assessing Speaking at KS3. We are not planning changes. As you will see from the post, our approach involves pupils in understanding their own progress and success in Speaking. And the post on Feedback gives a good idea about the rationale behind our assessment of Writing.

From our department review

Our old Listening and Reading assessments were based on past papers from AQA FCSE exams selected for the relevant topics. One reason was that they were similar in layout and format to the GCSE so at options evening we could show pupils how it is already familiar to them.

Ofsted aren't keen on KS3 assessments being too driven by GCSE and although this isn't the main reason for changing our assessments, it's something I think I agree on. Hopefully it's part of wanting pupils to have a rich, successful and appropriate KS3 experience. Having said that, there are some great examples of how teachers have created wonderful KS3 tasks that still look forward to the GCSE tasks they will eventually meet. For example @NazihadeLondres has developed lesson starters around TikTok videos to stimulate and scaffold natural conversation in a way that will lead on to the GCSE photocard.

From an AQA FCSE paper

It's more the other 2 highlighted points from the Ofsted Review which have given me food for thought. The philosophy of "test pupils on what they have learned" is not as straight-forward as it looks. Given the Ofsted Review's total omission of the idea of pupils learning to use their language, their statement may be interpreted as, "test pupils' recall of what they have learned." Do we want to have assessments that just check their recall? What about their ability to comprehend Listening and Reading in context? As language teachers, are we not responsible for teaching them literacy strategies for locating answers in texts? Using things like words from the question, cultural knowledge, cognates, grammatical understanding, prediction, deduction, elimination... in order to extract information from texts? 

Or on the other hand, does this requirement just label the pupils with strong underlying literacy as "good at languages"? And label pupils with weaker literacy as "bad at languages"? (I strongly suspect this is exactly what happens at GCSE Listening and Reading, with pupils' grades being a reflection of their literacy more than what they have learned in language lessons.)

I don't have to resolve this question. Because in fact, I think that a Unit test isn't the place to throw those demands of Reading and Listening at the pupils. If we think they are so important, then they should be central to our lessons and our teaching. And I think at the moment, they are not. At the moment (despite experimental forays into Listening for pleasure and Reading a class novel) our curriculum revolves around expanding a core repertoire of language that pupils meet in Listening and Reading and learn to deploy in their Speaking and Writing.

So, I am creating assessments designed to be based on testing how well pupils are learning that core repertoire they are being taught in class. You can see some examples here for Year 8 Unit 1.

Things like:

Listening and picking the correct word. 

Listening for what word has changed. 

Then translating sentences from French to English. 

And then sentences to translate into French where the previous question can act as scaffolding for words and structures.

Previously the most important role of our assessments had been that of identifying whether pupils were on track, or above, or below, depending on their starting points.

Ofsted are keen that we instead bear in mind the role of assessments in helping pupils understand their progress, but also in creating a feeling of success.

This raises a much more difficult question. If this is based on testing pupils' recall of what they have been taught, what mark on the test should we expect or accept? We will have to wait and see how they do!