During the latter part of last year, many of our early career teachers were planning and delivering strong lessons during formal observations. As their induction tutor my focus for feedback became about zoning in and fine-tuning specific Teachers’ Standards to further enhance their practice.
We had a large group of ECTs (13 in total) and, following many formal observations, I noticed that there were frequently patterns of strengths and areas of development across the cohort – perhaps unsurprising given that strengths would logically correlate with strategies that had been subject to a whole school focus that year.
While I continued to give bespoke feedback for individual lesson observations, where there were trends in the areas for development, I was able to collate my feedback and share it with all ECTs.
This not only provided reassurance that other ECTs were facing similar challenges, but also allowed me to provide more general support and guidance on how to meet specific Teachers’ Standards.
It provided talking points and ideas for mentors to pick up during their regular ECT meetings and instructional coaching cycles, too.
As a result, this article focuses on Teachers’ Standard 6 (and also number 2 to an extent) and summarises some of this broader guidance for how ECTs can ensure they are evidencing their progress to meeting the Teachers’ Standards.
Standard 6
Make accurate and productive use of assessment: Give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to that feedback
Effective feedback should be goal-orientated, understandable, actionable, specific, and personalised. While feedback can be given in writing as part of formal written assessments, in class it is quicker and usually more effective to give immediate verbal feedback.
Importantly, students need be given the opportunity to respond to that feedback – and it is this opportunity that is often overlooked or omitted in lessons.
High-quality and effective feedback is much easier to construct if the success criteria is explicit from the start. Consider:
- What specifically do you want the students to know or know how to do?
- What does success look (or sound) like for the task you have planned?
To illustrate this, you might consider using exemplars. These could be models you have constructed yourself or examples of students’ work (don’t forget to collect interesting examples of work as you come across them for future use).
Success criteria may be derived directly from exam board mark schemes, examiners’ reports, specifications, or revision guides etc. Think specifically: what would a Level 9 or top-level outcome look like for this task? If the goal is clear, it is then much easier to see the gap between where the student is right now and what they need to do to get there. Your feedback needs to bridge that gap. Your litmus test is – can students make improvements because of what you have said to them?
Next consider what planned opportunities there are in your lesson for students to respond to your feedback. Obvious opportunities include the reviewing and annotation of topic tests and assessments. However alternative suggestions during “normal” lessons could include...
...Say it again better
Encourage students to improve their response to a question when using cold-calling or hands-up.
First, offer praise and/or identify positive features of their original response. Then offer your suggestion for improvement – for example: “That is correct – however, can you say it again better? This time…”
- Use a full sentence (start them off if needed).
- Don’t use fillers (e.g. don’t start the sentence with the word “basically” or “so” – many students may need your help in constructing “better” sentences).
- Don’t use slang. Only use standard English in your answer.
- Include “this key term” in your answer.
- Explain your point using your subject-specific knowledge such as...
- Provide a balanced argument by also offering an alternative viewpoint.
- Justify your answer. Explain which is the strongest argument and why.
- Include an advantage as well as a disadvantage in your answer.
- Include a real-life example.
- Include the correct units (not just the number).
- Refer to two data points and both axis labels on your graph.
Give time for the student to formulate and improve their answer and if appropriate repeat the process. I am often amazed when you ask the next student a similar question how well they have listened to other students’ feedback and used the information to provide a “better” first response themselves.
...Live marking
Live marking is particularly useful when you want to provide quick corrective feedback during the “you do” or deliberate practice phase of the lesson.
First, plan your route through the classroom, targeting key students where appropriate, e.g. students with additional needs (SEND, EAL, Pupil Premium, off-task, or those considered HELP – high-effort, low performance).
Circulate through your classroom with a red pen (and mark scheme if appropriate). Scan and mark a student’s work, encourage them to make the appropriate amendments, then move on.
If behaviour is an issue, avoid turning your back on the group and keep looking up to scan the room so that you can address issues quickly.
When marking you might want to:
- Tick correct answers and underline correct key terms or valid points.
- Red dot errors that need amending (place red dots against the specific error or for more challenge place the dot in the margin).
- Circle spelling or grammatical errors – annotate with “sp” if needed.
- Draw a squiggly line under incorrect words or phrases.
- Use a caret (upside down v omission mark) to indicate missing information that needs adding.
- Use a highlighter to border a paragraph or section of work that you are focusing on with your feedback (yellow box marking).
- Combine with verbal feedback to speed up the process and increase the impact.
Keep circulating until the activity is over. If many students are making the same errors or mistakes, use your judgement to decide if it is more appropriate to stop the activity and give whole class feedback or reteach as needed before asking students to return to the task.
...Providing individualised feedback to the whole class with ‘two ticks and a wish’
Providing precise feedback to one individual in front of the whole class can work well for more complex tasks.
When you circulate during the “you do” phase of the lesson, scan and look for students’ work that demonstrates either a strong or an interesting response, or one that contains common errors or misconceptions that would make a good teaching opportunity.
Gain the attention of the class, then ask your selected student to read their answer aloud or gain their permission to display their work under the visualiser. If you are in a practical PE lesson, you may simply ask the student to demonstrate.
Give the student precise individualised feedback (in front of the whole class). State (at least two) specific things that they have done well against the success criteria. Then offer them an improvement – remember to be specific. If you say “add more detail” or “include an example” you need to say exactly what the detail or the example should be that they have missed.
Repeat this process with one or two other students to offer alternative or complementary feedback. Then ask all the students to respond to that feedback by either amending or improve their own work.
Linked to this is...
Teachers’ Standard 2 requires us to “promote good progress and outcomes by pupils” and to “guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging needs”.
Consider what planned opportunities you have in your lesson to encourage students to reflect on their learning and any progress they have made. Questions to ask might include:
- How well are you doing? How do you know?
- What are your strengths and areas for development? How do you know?
- How could you do this even better?
- If you did the test or quiz again, what fact do you need to learn, or skill do you need to improve, to get a higher score? Maybe encourage them to write this fact out or set a learning intention on a quizzing or revision resource.
- Can you explain to me/your partner what you have learned or learned how to do today?
- Can your students make reasoned choices and decisions about their learning. For example, why did you choose that method/approach and not this one? What other approaches could you have used? This is great in subjects where there are multiple ways to solve a problem.
- What do you do when you get stuck? Do you know where to look or who to ask if you need help?
- What (if any) silly mistakes did you make? What can you do next time to avoid making the same mistakes?
- How many marks were you away from the next grade/level? If you were to repeat the same task or test again and get the next level, what would be the minimum facts/skills you need to master? Write these down to help focus your revision.
- Alternatively, ask students to write five questions in their book that relate to the gaps in their knowledge identified from a recent test, task or quiz. They can include answers at the back of their book for reference. These questions then form a personalised starter or “do now” quiz for the next lesson.
- Helen Webb is an accredited executive coach based in Leicester. She supports and develops school leaders so they can avoid burn-out, drive school improvement and get the best out of their team and themselves. Helen has more than 20 years’ experience in education as a science teacher, lead practitioner, PGCE and ECT mentor, ECF Lead and ECT induction tutor. She is a regular contributor to SecEd – find her previous articles via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/helen-webb. Find out more about her coaching services at https://helenwebbcoaching.co.uk/
Further information & resources
- DfE: Teachers’ Standards, 2011: www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachers-standards