Assessment

Times Tables

The Multiplication Tables Check – what do you need to know?

The introduction of the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) means schools and teachers are looking for new ways to develop speed and recall of multiplication facts up to 12 x 12. What is expected of pupils? The incoming MTC is set to be administered online in timed conditions… Read More
Assessment image

Getting the best out of assessment

Susan Thompson What issues should you consider to make sure your investment in assessment delivers for students, teachers and your schools? Assessment is now a routine and essential element of school life. Using classroom activities, homework assignments, periodic testing, or once-a-year summative assessments; teachers constantly monitor and appraise the students… Read More

Assessment in Primary Science

There is a good, shared understanding of why we assess in in primary schools, but feeling confident about what to do to assess in science is challenging.  Teachers should use formative assessment as part of their everyday practice to help pupils achieve the learning that is set out… Read More

Assessment Loops: Improving Peer Assessment.

  I don’t know about you, but I am often frustrated by Peer Assessment. It something that we have to be seen to be doing, but can often become a box-ticking exercise, which students dread. Time and again, students write inane comments, ‘Good detail’ and then feel hard-done by, as… Read More

A Planning Activity for Extended Writing

I don’t know about you but I can’t count the number of times when I have told my students that they MUST plan in the exam. And now their plans have become an essential step in the Controlled Assessment process, it has become even more important. We all know that… Read More

In praise of grade inflation

Well if there’s a term that lots of people not directly involved with education have got used to this summer it’s ‘grade inflation’. To those of us in the trade this debate has an interesting feel to it. We’ve grown very used to a gentle year on year rise in… Read More

Are GCSEs ‘fit for purpose’? – a teacher’s perspective

So, Mr Gove got what he wanted then! Well, that’s the conspiracy theory isn’t it? The examination boards were leant on to move grade boundaries so Mr Gove could claim standards are falling, teachers are doing a bad job and more and more academies are needed. I’m not one for… Read More

Science and Maths students in Sofia

To Sofia for EU study visit on developing competencies in science and maths, working with colleagues from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. Bulgaria has a very good record of students winning medals at international Olympiads and those we met and spoke to certainly did great credit to… Read More

Never mind the 40% rule – here comes 100%

In December Ofqual confirmed that all GCSE science courses would move to all external assessment units being taken at the end of the course; this will take effect for courses being completed in 2014 onwards.  (This means that next year’s Year 10 students could use modular assessment for their Year… Read More

Secondary ICT – Michael Gove at BETT 2012

Well, Moses has descended and we have listened; the problem is what does he mean? We have the commandments, “Thou shall honour thy computing”, “Thou shall not worship false idols such as IT or even ICT”. We might like these commandments, but how do we make a religion from them?… Read More