"Even Me, Miss James?"

We have adopted Shirley Clarke's approach to formative assessment at Ysgol Brynteg. I found her inspirational at a course I attended in November 2005 It has changed the way I teach and the way in which I involve the children in their learning. We already had many strategies in place, but we needed to bring all the elements together.

The children are now involved at every level of their learning:

Planning - Sharing learning activities -Feedback - Target setting

Raising self-esteem

We place great emphasis on raising the children's self esteem and believe that this is the key to their learning. We want our children to accept that they have the ability to improve and learn.

Discussing learning/gaining confidence

The children discuss their learning at every level. At first they found it difficult to discuss what they had learnt and tended to discuss what they had done. Now they are in the routine of self-evaluating their learning. They are more confident at sharing their learning with others. The boys have responded particularly well to relating their learning objectives to 'real life' situations. The less able pupils have gained confidence and are realising that they have the ability to improve their learning.

Asking questions

There are strategies in place to help them e.g. Question posters. What can we do to help ourselves: - ask a friend - use a number line - use a dictionary

Questions on display include:

- What made you think when you were learning to?
- What did you find difficult?
- What helped you when something got tricky? e.g. a friend, a book
- What do you need more help with about learning to?
- What are you most pleased about with learning to?

One boy responded with surprise after our first self-evaluation session following a unit of work. We had talked about what they had learnt, and how it would benefit to them. He said "Even me Miss James?" He went home that night and discussed his work with his mother (something that was very unusual!)

If you would like to find out more about how Kate and other teachers are developing the work of Shirley Clarke in their classrooms, why not give Ysgol Brynteg a ring?

Are you developing Shirley Clarke's assessment for learning strategies in your school? If so we would like to know. Perhaps we could start a network and share the practices on Amdro. If you are interested please let your link school school improvement officer know.