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The National Strategies | Primary | Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics Assessment for learning

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Assessment for learningAssessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there.

Assessment for learning: 10 principles – Assessment Reform Group

Principles and key characteristics of assessment for learning

The guidance and materials in this section of the site have been organised into three interrelated areas. This interrelationship is fundamentally important and assessment for learning will not be effective unless all the areas, or layers, are working together.

At the heart of everything is learning and teaching. The materials in this section focus on the interactions between children and teachers, and between children themselves, which enable children to develop as independent learners who enjoy learning, work well with others and make good progress.

Planning for personalised learning focuses on what teachers need to do, individually and collaboratively, to develop assessment for learning and personalise learning by establishing supportive conditions for learning.

Leadership and management focuses on how to develop assessment for learning in a whole school or setting. It provides practical advice and tools to develop approaches and strategies. It highlights the need for distributed leadership where everyone in a school takes responsibility and works collaboratively, including children taking a lead in their own learning.



Learning and teaching

This section focuses on the interactions between children and teachers, and between children themselves, which together enable children to develop as independent learners who enjoy learning and who manage their relationships and the emotions necessary to work well with others and make good progress.

Independent learning: Children need to develop as independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning, and who work collaboratively with the teacher and with each other to take their learning forward, rather than being passive recipients of what they are being taught.

Learning and teaching for children with special educational needs in the primary years(Ref: 0321-2004)

Learning and teaching for dyslexic children (Ref: 1184-2005CDI)

Day-to-day assessment

Day-to-day assessment is a natural, integral and essential part of effective learning and teaching. Teachers and children continually reflect on how learning is progressing, see where improvements can be made and identify the next steps to take.

The interrelated strategies that should be part of everyday learning and teaching are:

sharing and talking about learning objectives, learning outcomes and success criteria with children; clarifying progression

recognising that learning is often demonstrated through oral and written language and the academic language required to show understanding has to be explicit and part of the sharing of learning objectives and success criteria

observing and listening to gather intelligence

questioning and whole-class dialogue to check, probe and develop understanding

explaining and modelling to clarify progression in key concepts and skills, demonstrate thinking processes and exemplify quality

giving oral and written feedback to support the evaluation of progress, clarify standards and help identify next steps in learning

planning for group talk, peer assessment and self-assessment to help children develop as independent learners

planning specific activities that give teachers an insight into the progress children are making, the standard they have achieved and the obstacles to their progress.

Effective strategies for day-to-day assessment

Day-to-day assessment in mathematics: guidance paper

Day-to-day assessment is supported throughout the literacy and mathematics areas of the Primary Framework.

Support for day-to-day assessment in the Primary Framework



Assessment as an integral part of learning and teaching

Assessment for learning takes place within teaching sequences and at the point of learning, for example at a point of interaction between teacher and child or between children, or during a moment of personal reflection.

Developing assessment for learning is not about adding a collection of teaching strategies into an existing repertoire. It is about reflecting on the impact of our teaching and being clear about what helps children learn and develop as learners. This includes developing social and emotional as well as cognitive skills.

Assessment for learning can seem deceptively simple. Many of its tools and classroom strategies are simple and easy to implement. There are undoubtedly some gains to be made from the immediate use of approaches such as ‘think, pair, share’ or providing written staged success criteria for children to refer to during peer assessment. However, teachers who most successfully develop and refine their assessment for learning practice never lose sight of the fact that assessment for learning is something happening in children’s minds, and all their planning and interactions with children aim to facilitate this.

Developing your practice

Assessment for learning throughout a teaching sequence

Involving children in their learning

Children need to be proactive partners in the learning process. They need to be taught how to take responsibility for the progress they make as independent learners able to work effectively with the teacher and with each other.

To do this, children need to feel that they are in a safe environment where they belong, that their opinions are valued, and that there is a clear structure to their role in assessing their own learning.

We need to help children judge how well they are doing. This requires a shared understanding of:

what children will learn

what they will be able to do after they have learned it

why they are learning – the big picture (sometimes a curricular target)

when they will get opportunities to use and apply the learning (how their learning fits with other curricular areas or their lives outside school)

how to judge the quality of the outcome using success criteria (which clarify standards and small steps of progression in key concepts and skills)

what ‘good’ and ‘even better’ looks like, and how to evaluate how well they have done and what they could do even better.

Helping children to be involved in their learning

Share the learning objectives with them, using language they understand, and make links with prior learning. The curricular learning objectives may be supplemented with language learning objectives.

Discuss with the whole class and with groups what they will be able to do as a result of their learning.



Clarify standards through explaining, modelling or providing examples of good work using understandable success criteria to help them judge quality.

Refer to the criteria throughout the teaching sequence, using teacher feedback, questioning and whole-class, group and paired discussions.

Review progress and achievement together, throughout and at the end of a teaching sequence.

Encourage children to identify for themselves when they have met success criteria.

Helping children with specific difficulties to be involved in their learning

It is important to ensure that all children can be involved in their own learning.

Without the appropriate opportunities to demonstrate independence, some children with special educational needs become passive learners and can develop ‘learned helplessness’, not feeling able to take responsibility for their own learning.

All children can be genuine partners in the learning process if the adults who work with them encourage the development of independence and responsibility, not reliance on adult help.


Teaching and learning review tables

These progression tables aim to help teachers develop aspects of assessment for learning in lessons. They describe practice through ‘focusing’ to ‘enhancing’ stages, where ‘enhancing’ is an outstanding level of practice.

Their focus is on evaluating the impact of teaching approaches rather than on making judgements about teachers’ competence.

They can be used in classroom-focused CPD activities to help teachers develop specific aspects of pedagogy through self-evaluation. They can be used to capture evidence of progress with developing practice and its impact on learning, derived from:

discussions with the teacher and other adults

discussions with children

reviewing planning documentation

scrutinising children’s work.

The most widely used review sheet is ‘Objective-led learning’, often still used by teachers focusing on developing other aspects of assessment for learning such as peer assessment (i.e. alongside the ‘Peer assessment and self-assessment’ sheet).

Teaching and learning review tables – Objective-led learning

Teaching and learning review tables – Oral feedback

Teaching and learning review tables – Written feedback

Teaching and learning review tables – Peer assessment and self-assessment

Teaching and learning review tables – Progression in learning and curricular targets

Teaching and learning review tables – Questioning and dialogue




This section provides you with links back into the Primary Framework’s guidance on:

targeting and tailoring learning to meet different needs

planning and teaching sequences

day-to-day assessment

recording and tracking of progress.

These are the points where formative and more periodic assessments inform how you plan learning for children with different learning and progression needs and inform your best use of assessment for learning.

It will take you to areas of the Primary Framework that will help you address how to:

establish age-related expectations

ensure that you are building on prior learning

maintain these expectations and progression

judge the quality of and progress evident in children’s learning outcomes

intervene effectively using guided sessions to address specific needs

track and monitor progress.

Tracking and monitoring progress

The tracking tutorial supports schools in engaging colleagues across the whole school in a professional dialogue about children’s progress, groupings, expectations and appropriate use of interventions. The associated tracking grid will help schools to identify children who are at risk of underachievement against national standards.

Support for day-to-day assessment in mathematics in the Primary Framework

Support for day-to-day assessment in literacy in the Primary Framework


Download this entire section in pdf format:


Developing assessment for learning

The Primary Framework website offers a guidance paper that explores day-to-day assessment in mathematics in more depth.

Establishing age-related expectations

It is useful to have a benchmark of outcomes for children to help when tracking and assessing children’s progress.

Progression in mathematics overviews



These overviews describe children’s learning throughout each year. The mathematics overviews illustrate how using and applying mathematics is integrated throughout teaching and learning, and the key role of the developing use of mathematical language.

Overview of learning – Foundation Stage – Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy

Overview of learning – Year 1 – Mathematics






Assessing pupils’ progress Standards files

Progression in learning objectives

Mathematics objectives are aligned to seven strands to demonstrate the progression in each strand.

Building on prior learning

Every block has a ‘Prior learning’ section giving prompts that identify what children need to know, understand and be able to do to access the learning intentions within that block. The teacher might need to assess children individually or in groups at the beginning of the block to investigate their prior learning related to one or two of these prompts. Other suggestions for the section include:

using the Block A prior learning prompts from the forthcoming year group as a focus for a transfer activity late in the summer term with a new class

building activities focusing on these prompts into teaching activities at the beginning of a new block

annotating the prompts towards the end of a unit to inform teaching the next unit in the block.

Example (Year 3 Block A)

Maintaining pitch and expectations

For each year group, a ‘Pitch and expectations’ document links past test questions (reproduced with the kind permission of QCA) and related questions to each of the objectives in the seven strands. These questions might be used:

to help in planning a unit to ensure that the pitch and expectation of questions used is appropriate

as prompts for assessing the progress of individuals and groups of children

with a group of children to discuss the strategies they would use and to help them prepare a solution, comparing alternative approaches to evaluate why some are more efficient than others



to generate a family of questions around a particular objective to provide practice and consolidation

to help children reflect on their progress and identify their areas for development.

Pitch and expectations: Year 1






Pitch and expectations: Year 6 progression to Year 7

Differentiation and mixed-age teaching

The blocks and units are structured to support mixed-age teaching. The starting point is planning for age-related expectations. Taking Year 3 Block A Unit 1 as the starting point, it is possible to use the ‘Associated links’ section to navigate to Year 2 Block A Unit 1 and Year 4 Block A Unit 1 to look at the related unit in the previous year and next year. This might be particularly useful when looking for assessment prompts and linked resources.

However, to look for support for differentiation and the most closely matched units, it would be appropriate to look at Year 2 Block A Unit 3 and Year 3 Block A Unit 2, as these are the units that would be taught most closely in time and pitch to Year 3 Block A Unit 1. These units can also be accessed via the ‘Associated links’ box or left-hand navigation.

Assessing children’s learning outcomes

In every unit, there are example learning outcomes given for each objective.

Example (Year 3 Block A Unit 1)

These are written as ‘I can…’ statements, and can be adapted for use with individuals or groups of children. They may be displayed for the class to see the progress they are making or to set targets for the next phase of work. They also provide a resource for engaging children in the assessment of their own progress. Particular statements might be shared with parents too, helping them to understand the pitch and focus of the learning their children are engaged in, for example over a half-term or term.



Questioning and assessment activities

In every unit, there is support for open-ended questions and activities to probe children’s understanding of the objectives. These can be built into planning and teaching activities and used to ensure that children are making progress within and across sequences of work.


Developing language

Assessing and supporting language development is a key part of developing assessment for learning in mathematics. Each block in the Primary Framework supports this through:

listing the vocabulary that children should be using when they are learning the mathematics in the block

giving example speaking and listening objectives that might be developed within the units in the block

illustrating how children should use and respond to mathematical language within the learning overview.

Personalising learning – intervening to address children’s needs

Each unit contains links to three kinds of resource to plan support and challenge for children as a result of ongoing assessment of need.

These are:

mathematical challenges for able children

Wave 2 Springboard intervention units

Wave 3 materials: ‘Supporting children with gaps in their mathematics understanding’.

These are recommended materials to support the learning in that unit. The Wave 3 materials are supported by charts for tracking children’s learning, which are useful in ensuring that the correct area of difficulty is identified and worked on.


Designing opportunities for learning

Within each unit, the learning overview illustrates the kinds of learning activities and contexts children might experience over the course of that unit. The overview shows how the skills, knowledge and understanding of using and applying mathematics can be incorporated into teaching and learning approaches. These skills of solving problems, representing, enquiring, reasoning and communicating are key to children being able to engage with and take responsibility for their learning.




Download this entire section in pdf format:


Establishing age-related expectations

It is useful to have a benchmark of outcomes for children to help when tracking and assessing children’s progress. These overviews describe children’s learning throughout each year.

Overview of learning – Foundation Stage – Communication, language and literacy

Overview of learning – Year 1 – Literacy






Progression in learning objectives

Literacy objectives are aligned to 12 strands to demonstrate the progression in each strand.

Pace and progression in key literacy skills

There are a number of progression papers that describe children’s learning in core literacy text type areas, such as narrative, poetry and a range of non-fiction. The literacy progression papers illustrate how progressions in core literacy skills are developed across the primary phase and can be used to support assessment for learning, through reviewing children’s progress against national expectations and pace and progression.

Developing assessment for learning – CPD

The Primary Framework CPD area can also be used to support the development of assessment for learning practice. This area contains materials aimed specifically at schools that wish to address the teaching of reading and writing, and in particular guided writing, across the school. It is also supported by additional video material exemplifying the effective teaching of writing in Years 1, 3 and 5, which demonstrates specific intervention based on day-to-day and periodic assessment.

Guidance on assessment for learning and guided writing

Guided writing is underpinned by effective assessment for learning. Guided writing sessions provide opportunities for ongoing assessment. Teachers identify the learning needs of children based on their assessments, and set precise writing targets that will address the needs of each group. Teachers explain the targets to the group and



regularly review them with children. Feedback is provided at every stage; this may take the form of self-assessment, peer assessment or teacher assessment.

Further guidance is available on p. 11 of the document Improving writing with a focus on guided writing.

Differentiation and mixed-age teaching

The year group medium-term plans and units are structured to support mixed-age teaching. The starting point is planning for age-related expectations. Each of the literacy units has a grouped set of objectives which are covered through the unit. By reviewing these objectives and moving back or forward in the same strand to the year above or below, each unit can be adapted to be used with mixed-age classes. In addition, there are a small number of exemplified mixed-age planning units which can be used as a model for this process. These might be particularly useful when looking for assessment prompts and linked resources.

Example mixed-age planning unit for Year 5 and Year 6 focusing on narrative

Children’s learning outcomes

In every exemplified literacy unit, as part of the teaching sequence, there are learning outcomes given for each phase of teaching and learning. These are written as learning outcome statements, and can be adapted for use with individuals or groups of children. They may be displayed for the class to see the progress they are making or to show steps across a longer teaching sequence and final written outcome. They also provide a resource for engaging children in the assessment of their own progress.

Example outcomes (Year 3 Non-fiction Unit 1)

Curricular targets

To support the use of literacy curricular targets the Primary Framework includes exemplification of curricular targets for literacy in Years 5 and 6. These curricular targets focus on high value literacy skills and also demonstrate the range of teaching approaches that will support children achieving their targets.

Example of literacy curricular targets for Year 5

Planning – literacy units

Building on prior learning

Every fully exemplified literacy planning unit has a ‘Prior learning’ section giving prompts that identify what children need to know, understand and be able to do to access the learning intentions in that unit. The teacher might need to assess children individually or in groups at the beginning of the unit to investigate their prior learning related to one or two of these prompts.

Example unit (Year 5 Narrative Unit 1)



Designing opportunities for learning

Within each unit, the section ‘Key aspects of learning’ illustrates the kinds of learning skills that children might experience over the course of the unit. This shows how the skills, knowledge and understanding of literacy can be incorporated into teaching and learning approaches. These central skills of empathy, creative thinking, social skills and communication are key to children being able to engage with and take responsibility for their learning.


Periodic assessment

For each exemplified literacy unit the main assessment focuses to support periodic assessment have been identified and listed. These are further supported by assessment prompts for each phase of the unit, which highlight the range of assessment opportunities for gathering a range of evidence linked to the teaching sequences.


Objective-led and outcome-led learning

Assessment for learning requires children to have a clear understanding of what they are trying to learn (learning objectives), how they can recognise achievement (learning outcomes), what ‘good’ looks like (success criteria) and why they are learning this in the first place (i.e. the big picture, sometimes linked to personal curricular targets).

Learning objectives in lessons are important because they help secure progress towards the medium-term and longer-term objectives. They support planning and help focus the teaching on what children need to learn. They help children see the point of individual lessons or sequences of lessons.

Learning outcomes are important because they focus on children’s achievement and help teachers design lessons that enable children to do well. As important as clear learning objectives are, it is the clarity of learning outcomes that most helps children make good progress over a sequence of work.

Success criteria are the refinement of the learning outcomes. They provide the detail needed to help children understand how to evaluate the quality of their work and improve it.


Success criteria

Children’s progress is accelerated when they are clear about the success criteria for the intended outcomes, are able to judge the quality of their work and know how to improve it. This requires teachers having a good understanding of progression in the key concepts and skills in their subject.

Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics: Overviews of learning



When teachers are clear about success criteria they are able to support whole-class and individual progress through questioning, dialogue and written feedback.

Sharing objectives and success criteria

Sharing learning objectives and developing success criteria with children leads to a stronger focus on the learning than on the activity and enables children to become more self-evaluative.

Simple language is effective, for example:

‘We are learning to…’ when referring to learning objectives

‘Remember to…’ when referring to success criteria

‘I can…’ when assessing the learning outcomes.

Teachers and practitioners:

need a clear understanding of progression in the key concepts and skills they are teaching (subject and cross-curricular)

should understand the language demands of the tasks and be clear about the language children are expected to use

should share and discuss the objectives and intended outcomes with children and clarify small steps in progression (through explained success criteria) so that children can reflect on and improve their work

need to ensure that success criteria are appropriately challenging for all children, and support and extend children’s expectations of their own achievement. (The more able children can go beyond the specified success criteria, and can manage the success criteria for themselves.)

One example of sharing success criteria is for the teacher to ask, just before children start work: ‘So what do you need to remember to do or include in order to…[achieve the learning objective]?’ The teacher writes up the responses, and children use these as criteria for their focus, self-evaluation and feedback.

Sharing the big picture

Children need to know why they are learning and need to be able to make connections between the learning objectives of different lessons and curricular areas. This can be achieved as follows.

Discuss individual learning targets with children. Oral and written feedback can then help children see how their learning in lessons is helping them to progress towards their targets.

Explain the overview of a unit of work or topic, for example through the following.

- Provide a curricular overview for the half-term showing key focuses on curriculum content, and aspects of learning enabling learning links to be discussed and identified.

- Discuss with children at the start of a unit of work what they already know about the topic and what they would like to know and learn about. Concept mapping is often used to help children put together their initial thoughts.



- Provide a visual display of the coverage of a unit of work, and then use it throughout the teaching and learning sequences to draw together what has been learned and make connections with future learning.

- Present the unit coverage as a list of questions to be explored.

Provide a curriculum overview for the term or half-term, showing key focuses for different curriculum areas, and also enabling ‘learning links’ to be discussed and identified for cross-curricular links and application opportunities.

Feedback on learning

In order to progress and succeed, children need constant and supportive feedback on their learning. Adults working in schools and settings need to give both oral and written feedback that helps children understand how to take ownership and control of their own learning and progress.

Children benefit from feedback on their curricular learning as well the academic language they used to show their learning.

Language, especially incidental talk while children are working, gives strong messages. Feedback when children are finding a task difficult – such as ‘I know you are having difficulty with this. Don’t worry; I’m going to help you’ – helps children to become less afraid to make mistakes and more able to admit their difficulties, and raises self-esteem.

Assessment for learning involves creating an ethos in a school or setting where talk and dialogue about learning are central to the day-to-day work of the school. Children will then be more willing to articulate their own successes or areas for improvement, and will also give feedback to teachers and each other more readily.

Specific positive oral feedback

Oral feedback is regular and interactive. It is both direct (targeted to individuals or groups) and indirect (as others listen in and reflect on what is said). It works in three directions: teacher to child, child to teacher and child to child. All three are important, necessary and interlinked. The teacher can model the language of feedback that children can employ themselves, in discussions and paired peer assessment.

Oral feedback is face-to-face and all the more personal and powerful for that. It is immediate: children are often able to respond to it straight away.

Oral feedback should be:

positive – recognising children’s efforts and achievements to date

developmental – offering specific, detailed advice to help children progress.

Planned and responsive oral feedback

Written feedback

Children need written feedback that provides clear evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, prompts further thought and reasoning, and identifies the next step in



learning. Grades or rewards such as stickers or stamps encourage children to look for ways to get the best ‘marks’ or gain a reward, rather than work out how to improve their learning.

Identifying elements of success and one or two areas to improve helps children to develop skills and concepts. Over-marking and providing too much written feedback makes the feedback inaccessible to children. It is more effective to have a smaller number of items focused on the success criteria.

Children need classroom time to engage with and respond to feedback. They are unlikely to be able to embed any suggestions for improvement and apply them to later work unless they are given time to respond to feedback – assessment becomes formative when the evidence is actually used to meet learning needs (Black, P. et al., 2002, Working inside the black box: assessment for learning in the classroom, nferNelson). This is particularly necessary for children with special educational needs. Some children will need to be supported to read the feedback and apply the suggestions for improvement.

Teacher modelling and whole-class marking can be used to train children gradually to identify their own successes and improvement needs, individually or in pairs. Constant self-review becomes an expectation of lessons, as well as teacher feedback.

Marking against the success criteria

Questioning and dialogue

Classroom dialogue (whole-class, group or paired discussion) is at the heart of good assessment for learning, as it enables children to develop their thinking and to learn from each other. Teachers need to develop children’s dispositions, skills and confidence to engage in reciprocal talk within a positive climate for learning.

Vibrant, structured and focused dialogue provides children with the opportunity to:

dig deeper into their understanding and identify what they need to learn

support the learning of others

work collaboratively

enjoy learning as active participants.

Where dialogue is underdeveloped, assessment for learning simply isn’t happening, no matter what strategies the teacher uses. Dialogue is most inclusive where learning results from the interactions between teacher and children, and between children themselves, in both whole-class and small-group situations. It is also more effective when it takes account of the linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom.

It is important for children with special educational needs to be included in the classroom dialogue. Some children may need extra time to process the questions. It is also important that questions for children with special educational needs are planned to be challenging and are designed to enable them to demonstrate their learning.

Dialogue is sometimes avoided by teachers (and children) because it can result in ‘loss of control’. Typically this is because children do not have the skills, protocols or habits of discussion or because discussion is insufficiently focused.



Community of enquiry and circle time provide examples of how whole-class discussions can be facilitated and structured effectively. Guidance can be found in the Excellence and Enjoyment: social and emotional aspects of learning: Guidance (Ref: 1378-2005G).

High quality dialogue is an essential component of effective classrooms. Where assessment for learning processes are active, dialogue contributes as follows.

Dialogue enables teachers to judge children’s understanding and learning, and so make immediate adjustments to their teaching.

Dialogue enables children to develop their own learning because through talk they become aware of their own learning needs and pathways to improvement. Therefore it progressively enables children to become more self-aware, independent learners.

Developing questioning is usually the first move in setting up interactive classrooms where effective dialogue flourishes. Questions are key to formative assessment as they enable children to realise what they know or partly know, and can guide them to further develop their understanding.

Although it is important to plan opportunities for questioning and dialogue in advance, assessment for learning is particularly powerful when learning is shaped as children’s understandings and misconceptions are revealed during dialogue. This is most effective when it is led by teachers making informed use of their subject knowledge, their repertoire of teaching strategies and their knowledge of the children.

Features of effective dialogue

Developing strategies that promote classroom dialogue

Teaching strategies for effective dialogue


Peer assessment and self-assessment

Peer assessment and self-assessment is much more than children marking their own or each other’s work. To improve learning, it must be an activity that engages children with the quality of their work and helps them reflect on how to improve it. Peer assessment enables children to give each other valuable feedback so they learn from and support each other. It adds a valuable dimension to learning: the opportunity to talk, discuss, explain and challenge each other enables children to achieve beyond what they can learn unaided. Peer assessment helps develop self-assessment, which promotes independent learning, helping children to take increasing responsibility for their own progress.

Developing peer assessment and self-assessment

Children do not become self-evaluative overnight. The development of peer assessment and self-assessment takes planning, time, patience and commitment. When children don’t understand the intended learning outcomes they find it difficult to move beyond superficial criteria related to neatness and spelling. By using a range of strategies and by dedicating time to allow children to reflect on and discuss their



learning, teachers can develop children’s peer assessment and self-assessment skills. Systematically developing the skills of self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy is an essential part of this process.

The process of developing peer assessment and self-assessment needs to be tackled in stages. Initially children may need to have the process modelled for them, using examples of work that demonstrate the intended learning outcomes, either from previous teaching or examples from other children’s work. These can be used with the whole class, for example on a whiteboard, to critique the responses and model the approach before expecting children to work on each other’s or their own work. It is helpful to ‘think aloud’ while critiquing so that children develop the necessary language and approach.

This can be a particularly valuable experience for a child with special educational needs. Commenting on other children’s work has clear benefits, developing self-esteem and the skills of self-advocacy.

To develop peer assessment and self-assessment teachers will need to:

plan peer assessment and self-assessment opportunities, for example with ‘pair and share’ opportunities during class questioning

explain the intended learning outcomes behind each task and how they relate to the learning objectives, while ensuring that children are aware of the opportunities that learning presents (there may be opportunities to extend the learning for the more able children, or to relate to specific children’s interests)

provide children with clear success criteria to help them assess the quality of their work

train children over time to assess their own work and the work of others, and develop an appropriate language

give children opportunities in mathematics lessons to discuss and reflect on problem-solving and calculation strategies, comparing and evaluating approaches

frequently and consistently encourage children’s self-reflection on their learning

guide children to identify their next steps.

Time needs to be built in to the lesson for structured reflection, for example using comments such as the following.

‘Find one example you are really proud of and circle it. Tell the person next to you why you are pleased with it.’

‘Decide with your talk partner which of the success criteria you have been most successful with and which one needs help or could be taken even further.’

(After whole-class sharing for a minute or two) ‘You have three minutes to identify two places where you think you have done this well and read them to your partner.’

‘You have five minutes to find one place where you could improve. Write your improvement at the bottom of your work.’

‘Look back at the problems you have solved today. Where were you successful? What approach did you take?’



Planning for a whole-school approach to developing peer assessment and self-assessment

A whole-school approach to developing peer assessment and self-assessment is necessary. Peer assessment and self-assessment is most effectively promoted as part of a systematic approach to developing the social and emotional aspects of learning. It requires children to take increased responsibility for their learning and develop as independent learners. This has fundamental implications for a school’s learning ethos.

For peer assessment and self-assessment to be developed successfully, teachers need to:

understand clearly the progression in key concepts and skills in their subject

help children understand this progression, and help them use success criteria to judge the quality of their work and understand how to improve it

develop their skills in orchestrating whole-class questioning and dialogue that includes all children and causes them to reflect on their learning and support each other’s learning

understand how children learn and develop social and emotional skills, and actively promote social and emotional skills

develop children’s confidence and skills in paired and group discussions –teachers and teaching assistants need to be able to support group discussion and model constructive responses that challenge both the highest-attaining and lowest-attaining children.

All of this has implications for the CPD of teachers and teaching assistants and for the development of a learning culture based on collaborative working and mutual support.

The Primary Framework provides a significant amount of support for teachers. For example, the section ‘Learning objectives’ for both mathematics and literacy sets out the year-by-year progression in knowledge, skills and understanding. Teaching sequences and learning overviews illustrate how to structure learning experiences to incorporate opportunities for peer assessment and self-assessment.

Strategies for peer assessment and self-assessment

Marking partnerships – an example

Primary Framework – Literacy Primary Framework – Mathematics

Planning for personalised learning

This section shows how developing a responsive approach to supporting children’s learning maximises progress, participation and potential.

The materials in this section focus on what teachers need to do, both individually and collaboratively, to personalise learning through:

establishing supportive conditions for learning

using assessment for learning to support decision making on planning learning opportunities and teaching strategies

using individual, class and school curricular targets.



Like many aspects of effective practice, whole-school ownership and collaboration are essential to developing assessment for learning and to personalising learning for all children.

Personalising learning and teaching

Put simply, personalising learning and teaching means taking a highly structured and responsive approach to each child’s and young person’s learning, in order that all are able to progress, achieve and participate. It means strengthening the link between learning and teaching by engaging pupils – and their parents – as partners in learning

(2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Group)

There are three essential and interrelated elements that need to be in place in a small-group, classroom or whole-school setting for personalised learning to be both effective and successful. Each element has equal importance:

how children and young people learn: an understanding of theories of learning, the teaching models these give rise to and how they relate to individuals or groups of learners – ‘fitness for purpose pedagogy’ (this element includes the importance of social and emotional aspects of learning)

what children and young people learn: knowledge about key skills, subject concepts, progression within and between subjects and areas of learning (subject knowledge)

assessing learners’ achievement and their learning needs: using formative, periodic and summative assessment, diagnostic marking, questioning and response to plan next steps in learning and provision (assessment for learning).

2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Group (Ref: 04255-2006DOM-EN)

Pedagogy and personalisation (Ref: 00126-2007DOM-EN)

A framework for personalised learning, downloadable from Leading on Intervention personalisation section

SEAL materials

Conditions for learning that support assessment for learning

Creating an ethos and environment in which children can enjoy learning, and reflect, improve and grow in confidence, is fundamental to learning.

Schools and settings will need to consider the conditions for learning they create before they focus on any specific aspect of assessment for learning.

Effective assessment for learning depends on schools and settings having established a secure rationale:

for their ethos and attitudes to learning

for the development of the learning environment

for the establishing of routines and behaviours.

All of these underpin good practice in assessment for learning.



There are a number of different factors that interact to create supportive conditions for learning and which schools need to consider. These include:

physical environment and its organisation

resources and their organisation

systems and structures in the learning environment

teaching and support

understanding the link between communication, language, literacy and learning

personal, social and emotional development.

However, the most important factors to consider are the ethos and the values of the school. In learning environments where the ethos supports learning and is reflected in both teaching styles and lesson content:

there is an expectation on the part of adults and children that learning is important and enjoyable, and that everyone can achieve

teaching uses a range of approaches, and there is a culture of collaborative learning that builds on what all children, from diverse backgrounds, know and understand

teachers and practitioners are ambitious for children, and expectations of learning are high

children are motivated to be ‘the best they can’.

Social and emotional aspects of learning (Ref: 0110-2005G)

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching in the primary years (Ref: 0518-2004G)

Creating a learning culture: Classroom community, collaborative and personalised learning (Ref: 0522-2004G)

Creating a learning culture: Conditions for learning (Ref: 0523-2004G)


Learning and teaching for dyslexic children (Ref: 1184-2005CDI)

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years; Unit 1: Planning and assessment for language and learning (Ref: 2132-2006DCL-EN)

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years; Unit 3: Creating an inclusive learning culture (Ref: 2134-2006DCL-EN)

Classroom quality standards for gifted and talented learners

Cultivating the best conditions for learning in the classroom

Thinking about how children learn makes it possible to work out how best to teach. When children understand what helps them to learn they can review the effectiveness of the strategies they have used and their attitudes to learning.

Teachers and practitioners need to start by reflecting on their assumptions about how children learn, how these affect their own practice and how the ethos and attitudes in the school or setting support the learning process.



Schools and settings can help children to learn specific skills, but we can also help children become better learners through helping them recognise their own learning strengths and areas for development.

These ideas are explored further in the publication Pedagogy and personalisation (Ref: 00126-2007DOM-EN).

To create the right conditions for learning, teachers and practitioners will need to understand how to:

manage a class, a group and an individual, and establish routines

interact effectively with children to include them and use language to build mutual respect

ensure that learning builds on prior learning and attainment, varying approaches to ensure that children and young people learn in a variety of ways (including incorporating a flexible approach when structuring learning for gifted and talented children who do not follow usual learning patterns)

plan effective use of time, space and resources, and make use of the wider environment to meet the needs of different groups

promote social and emotional skills, both explicitly and implicitly.

Day-to-day assessment

Support for building on prior learning and attainment is provided in the ‘Planning’ section of the literacy and mathematics areas of the Primary Framework.

The learning environment as a tool for learning (Ref: 0321-2006DWO-EN) Intensifying Support Programme professional development meetings

Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and emotional aspects of learning (Ref: 0110-2005G)

Improving provision and outcomes for gifted and talented learners

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years; Unit 3: Creating an inclusive learning culture (Ref: 2134-2006DCL-EN)

New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance (Ref: 00650-2007BKT-EN)

Designing opportunities for learning (planning)

Focusing on learning at the planning stage means:

being clear about the learning and teaching objectives in planning and sharing them with the children and their parents and carers

being clear about the importance of the language demands of the curriculum as well as language teaching and learning opportunities provided by the curriculum

including social and emotional learning and teaching objectives in planning, when appropriate, and sharing them with the children and their parents and carers

planning the key focus points for the teaching and the learning (the success criteria) and involving the children by making them aware of, and even part of, the creation of the agreed success criteria

making sure that the context is designed to enable the learning objective to be fulfilled



being confident to adapt the planning and teaching at any time if the learning objective, based on assessment throughout the teaching sequence, is not being fulfilled.

The Primary Framework encourages flexibility to ensure that teachers use the most appropriate organisation and structure to promote and develop children’s learning in literacy and mathematics.

Phases (including timings) within and across lessons should support the learning intention by introducing, developing and reviewing the focus.

Children should know what they are learning, and why, as well as the extent of the progress they are making.

While the teacher orchestrates the structure of learning, children should have opportunities to enquire, to question and to explore, using their full language repertoire, so that they can apply their learning and teachers can consolidate and build on children’s knowledge, skills and understanding.

While it is necessary to plan across terms and weeks to build progression and cover content, such planning should be adapted to meet the needs of children’s learning in response to assessment and ongoing review.

Building on and activating prior learning is at the heart of the renewed PrimaryFramework. The professional development materials in the ‘CPD’ section provide support for developing an understanding of age-related expectations and making use of prior learning prompts to assess children’s understanding.


Mathematics planning Literacy planning

Sharing learning objectives and learning outcomes

Teachers or practitioners and children need a shared understanding of what is to be learned (the learning objective). This can include an appropriate social and emotional learning objective or a language objective as well as a subject-based objective. Both will identify what the children are expected to be able to do after they have learned it (the learning outcome).

To help children we share the learning objectives with them, using language they understand.

We discuss with the whole class and with groups of children what they can do as a result of their learning, both during and towards the end of the lesson or sequence of lessons. Support for this is provided through learning outcomes within the teaching sequences in exemplified units for literacy, and next to assessment for learning prompts within each unit in mathematics.

We provide ongoing feedback on their responses, drawing on our analyses and judgements.

Feedback in the lesson refers back to the objectives in order to identify for the children their successes and areas for improvement.

Feedback on learning

Learning objectives – Mathematics Learning objectives – Literacy



Success criteria

Success criteria are not new; teachers have always asked children: ‘So what are the key things you need to remember?’

The emphasis needs to be on summarising the key points that link exclusively to the learning objective.

It is helpful to identify the kind of language that enables children to articulate their learning, as well as other ways of showing their learning, for example demonstration and application.

Displaying success criteria can provide a visual prompt for children and teachers during the course of the lesson or sequence of lessons.

Asking children to reflect back to the teacher or practitioner the success criteria, or what they need to understand, gives children ownership of the success criteria.

Success criteria provide a framework for a dialogue with children. Discussions focus on how well the success criteria have been met. Children can contribute to frequently updated displays of work where they select and display their work when they have identified that it meets the agreed success criteria.

Planning the success criteria in short-term planning is vital to ensure a focus on learning as opposed to activities.

The success criteria:

are based on the objective, and should shape the teaching and modelling and provide the children’s focus while they are working

are the key focus for the teacher’s and children’s feedback.

Success criteria

Structuring learning

The challenge for teachers is to ensure that learning is effectively structured over sequences of lessons as well as within lessons.

The Primary Framework promotes longer-term planning of teaching sequences that build learning over time. It includes support for medium-term planning to develop a sequence of teaching and learning that identifies objectives and cycles of ‘assess, plan, teach, practise, apply and review’ over each unit.

In literacy and mathematics, learning is structured into two-week or three-week units designed to focus on developing and sustaining learning over time, rather than day-to-day coverage of individual objectives.

Additional resources to support structuring learning for children with specific needs

Guidance to support pupils with specific needs in the daily mathematics lesson (Ref: 0545-2001)

Teaching the literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson in special settings

Speaking, listening, learning: Working with children who have special educational needs

Supporting pupils with special education needs in the literacy hour (Ref: 0101-2000)



Using the P scales (QCA/05/1589)

Classroom quality standards for gifted and talented learners

Learning and teaching (literacy) Guidance on mathematics planning

Day-to-day assessment in mathematics: guidance paper

Assessment for learning strategies

The report 2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Groupidentifies five core strategies that have been shown to have an impact on children’s performance.

Assessment helps teachers to collect information about children’s achievement in order to adjust teaching to meet children’s learning needs more fully, through the implementation of five core strategies.

1 – Engineering effective discussions, questions and tasks that elicit evidence of learning

This might involve teachers developing new questioning techniques, such as waiting longer to allow children time to think about their answer, adopting a no-hands-up policy or designing questions around common misconceptions. Questioning and dialogue

2 – Providing feedback that moves learners forward

This might involve teachers identifying selected tasks on which to provide structured comments, with a particular focus on what the children could do to improve their work. Feedback on learning

3 – Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success

This might involve giving children access to mark schemes and asking them to mark their own or each other’s work, with reference to key criteria. Peer assessment and self-assessment

4 – Activating children as the owners of their own learning

This might involve children selecting tasks from a range offered by the teacher and conducting self-assessments of their progress. Involving children in their learning

5 – Activating children as resources for one another.

This might involve children asking each other for help in answering a question, working in groups to tackle a task or providing feedback on each other’s work. Involving children in their learning

2020 Vision: Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020 Review Group (Ref: 04255-2006DOM-EN)


Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years; Unit 1: planning and assessment for language and learning (Ref: 2132-2006DCL-EN)

Gifted and talented education leading teacher materials contain clear links between assessment for learning materials and gifted and talented provision.

Literacy - CPD materials Mathematics - CPD materials



Formative use of periodic and summative assessments

Primary schools have a long tradition of gathering summative assessment information. This kind of assessment of learning has traditionally been distinguished from the more interactive, formative, continuous interchange between teacher or practitioner and learner that characterises assessment for learning. Typically, the information generated by such assessment has not been used to shape and refine what happens in the classroom, nor has it often been discussed with children and parents or carers. However, there are ways of using summative assessment information that can inform and contribute to some of the approaches to assessment for learning.

The following links provide more information about using summative assessment formatively.

Tracking tutorial and tracking sheet

DCSF/RAISEonline: Evaluating school performance (Ref: 03861-2006EXE-EN-01)

Using curricular targets

Curricular targets are based on learning objectives. They are informed and identified by analysis of children’s work, discussions with children, teachers’ assessment information and test performance.

In primary schools, curricular targets are used to support improvement by identifying next steps or areas of focus. They operate at a whole-school level to support whole-school improvement by identifying key areas of literacy and mathematics, and an individual or group level to identify next steps for improvement for identified areas of learning.

Schools might also consider identifying curricular targets for social and emotional skills.

Improving outcomes for children in the Foundation Stage in maintained schools (Ref: 03960-2006BKT-EN)

Whole-school curricular targets

These identify whole-school priorities and areas for improvement. The priorities are usually included in the school development plan and are often linked to performance management.

Whole-school curricular targets have been used as a core tool in the Intensifying Support Programme and the Primary Framework to:

support whole-school improvement, raising standards and accelerating progress through the use of age-related targets that raise expectations and aspirations for children and adults

develop a whole-school approach to, and accountability for, school improvement

identify whole-school priorities and areas for development.

Strengthening teaching and learning through the use of curricular targets (Ref: 0186-2006DWO-EN)

Intensifying Support Programme professional development



To support the use of literacy curricular targets the Framework has exemplification of curricular targets in Years 5 and 6.

There is also guidance on curricular targets in the exemplified literacy units.

Example (Year 1 Narrative Unit 2)

Mathematics - Learning objectives Literacy - Learning objectives

Individual or group improvement targets

Schools also use curricular targets in the context of improvement targets for groups or individuals. These targets are identified from analysis of children’s work, optional or statutory assessment tests and dialogue with children. They are based on a clear understanding of progression or next steps in learning. The targets can be drawn from whole-school curricular targets as part of the layering process, or they can be more personalised to meet the identified needs and improvement priorities for individual children.

For bilingual learners targets will also include specific aspects of language development so that these children learn to use cognitive and academic language with accuracy and proficiency. These aspects may be related to the curricular target or identified through analysis of spoken and written language.

The learning objectives identified in the Primary Framework for each year group should be drawn on to create appropriate children’s targets. These targets should align with the whole-school curricular target for literacy identified by the school leadership team, and should be layered across the school.

The progression within each strand in the Primary Framework can be used to support differentiated targets for different ability groups and provide a useful progression to support children from where they currently are to where they need to be, particularly when progress needs to be accelerated due to underperformance.

To enable parents to be effective partners in children’s learning, these targets should be shared with parents and carers.

Examples of layered curricular targets in literacy

In the mathematics area of the Primary Framework, there are identified ‘I can…’ statements for each objective in the context of the unit. These progress throughout the year, and will need to be adapted for individuals and groups of children.

Mathematics - Learning objectives Literacy - Learning objectives

Curricular target setting, getting and assessing

Curricular targets should be embedded in the planning, teaching and assessment cycle so they are part of the designed learning opportunities rather than an add-on or separate element. This would involve subject leaders or teachers making decisions about when and how curricular targets can be taught, practised and applied.

Teachers therefore need to consider when attention to curricular targets will be planned for, and when key learning will be addressed through modelled and/or guided activity. Day-to-day assessment strategies should be used for continuous review of each child’s progress towards and beyond the curricular targets.



Children should also be involved in assessing their own progress towards achievement of the curricular targets. The SEAL resource offers a range of materials that are helpful in this process: they promote children’s self-awareness and management of feelings. In particular there are activities to help children identify their preferred learning styles. A learning map can be found in the SEAL theme ‘Going for goals!’ Yellow resources.

In order to maximise successful achievement of the curricular targets it is useful to consider:

what aspect of the curricular target children will find difficult to learn, and why

what teaching strategies will best support the teaching and learning of the target

what prompts could be used to support the learning of the curricular target (e.g. steps to success, success criteria, ‘What a good one looks like’)

how these could be used to support teacher assessment, peer assessment and self-assessment.

The leadership team should also consider what support colleagues might require with the subject, curricular and pedagogical knowledge required to ensure that all children achieve their targets.

Developing a writing layered curricular target using the renewed Primary Framework(Ref: 00325-2007DWO-EN)

Developing the foundations for curricular target setting (Ref: 0322-2006) Intensifying Support Programme professional development meetings

Exemplar whole school curricular targets: English and mathematics

Example curricular targets for literacy

Raising standards in mathematics – Achieving children's targets (Ref: 1075-2004)

In mathematics, ‘Pitch and expectations’ documents can be accessed from the ‘Planning’ section via each year group’s resources page. These documents take past test questions, which may have been used summatively, and organise them under each of the strands and objectives of the Primary Framework. These questions can then be used not only to guide the pitch and expectations of teaching, but formatively as prompts for discussion during plenary sessions or small-group activities.

Pitch and expectations in mathematics

Primary Framework - Mathematics Primary Framework - Literacy

The Foundation Stage

In the Foundation Stage, an understanding of how young children develop and learn is an important factor in developing approaches to target setting. ‘The principles for early years education’ (Curriculum guidance for the Foundation Stage, pp. 13–17) provide useful advice, for example the following points.

Early years experience should build on what children already know and can do.

Well-planned, purposeful activity and appropriate intervention by practitioners will engage children in the learning process.

Practitioners must be able to observe and respond appropriately to children.

The DCSF publication Improving outcomes for children in the Foundation Stage in maintained schools (Ref: 03960-2006BKT-EN) contains more detailed guidance,



together with a series of local authority case studies developed through the Intensifying Support Programme.

Early Years Foundation Stage materials

Leadership and management

This section focuses on the whole-school development of assessment for learning.

We know that to be effective, the development of assessment for learning requires whole-school leadership for learning and a whole-school commitment to strengthening teaching and learning, improving achievement and progress for all learners.

‘Teachers are familiar with many of the elements of assessment for learning: they lie at the heart of outstanding learning and teaching. They involve teachers changing what they do, day by day, to respond to their pupils. When they do this within a whole school context that establishes the priority of assessment for learning, supported by effective systems for tracking pupils’ progress, the impact of assessment on learning is likely to be considerable’

(A vision for teaching and learning in 2020, Ref: 04255-2006DOM-EN)

Therefore, the key to successfully developing assessment for learning is distributed leadership, with everyone in a school taking responsibility for learning and working collaboratively. This includes developing children as independent learners taking a lead in their own learning.

Leading improvement through the Primary Framework Leadership in the Foundation Stage - case studies

Leading on improvement

A growing body of research identifies important and interrelated keys to improvement. Using these well will help us to ensure that all children make greater gains in speaking, listening, literacy and mathematics, and that children can confidently apply these skills to deepen and enrich their learning across the primary curriculum.

The first of these keys is assessment for learning and deepening the professional learning of teachers in their understanding of how to use assessment for learning to improve children’s progress in critical strands of literacy and mathematics.

The second key is the use of continuing professional development (CPD) which is collaborative, classroom-centred and school-based. Using these forms of CPD will help us to deepen the professional learning of teachers in their understanding and use of assessment for learning in ways that have the greatest impact on classroom learning. This form of professional learning needs to be expertly led.

The third key is primary school leadership: leadership for improvement, to stimulate and engage teachers; leadership to raise expectations and bring to fruition sustained high quality, high impact professional learning. The Primary Framework itself is a vital resource to support the development of assessment for learning, collaborative CPD and leading for improvement: the fourth key.



Leading improvement using the Primary Framework: Guidance for headteachers and senior leaders (Ref: 00484-2007BKT-EN)

Leading improvement using the Primary Framework: CPD models

Making Great Progress – Schools with outstanding rates of progression in Key Stage 2(Ref: 00443-2007)

Twenty schools with outstanding rates of progression in Key Stage 2 were visited to find out what lies at the heart of such spectacular improvements for children. The schools visited all shared common characteristics in each of these areas, and a strong picture emerged of what leads to success in securing progression.

Leading assessment for learning

The Assessment for learning eight schools project was a national action research project running from July 2005 to October 2006. It was designed to gain a deeper understanding of how to develop assessment for learning successfully and to evaluate the impact of assessment for learning on learning, teaching and standards and on motivation, engagement and behaviour. Although the research was carried out in secondary schools many of the findings are relevant to primary school development.

Nine of the report’s thirteen key messages relate to the leadership and management of change.

Effective whole-school change must be informed by a thorough and ongoing analysis of the overarching learning needs of pupils. This is about diagnosing common obstacles to learning in lessons and teachers working collaboratively within and across departments to address these. Pupils’ learning needs change over time as schools help their pupils develop as learners.

To establish assessment for learning whole school both top-down and bottom-up change processes must prevail as they fulfil different purposes.Top-down approaches can convey a clear message about expectations and focus for improvement but this alone does not win the hearts and minds of all teachers or build internal capacity.

Assessment for learning practice is most successfully developed where teachers work collaboratively within and across departments, share their practice and learn from what they and their peers do well. Change is most effective when there is a sustained professional dialogue between teaching staff, and between staff and their pupils. In planning change, consideration needs to be given to establishing mechanisms for encouraging and facilitating this dialogue.

Senior and middle leaders need to maintain an unrelenting focus on, and support for, the intended change. This includes addressing the issue of competing priorities and the contradictory practices which may stem from these.

A secure and shared understanding of what effective assessment for learning practice looks like is essential for teachers to be able to reflect and develop their practice and for leaders to be able to help them do this. Isolated pockets of good practice can be developed by individual teachers, but for assessment for learning to have significant impact, development needs to be whole school. Everyone, but especially senior and middle leaders, must continue to develop an ever more insightful understanding of assessment for learning.



Senior and middle leaders need to reflect critically on their ways of working and be prepared to ‘think outside the box’, that is, to flex and change through learning from others to take intelligent informed risks. Effective leaders are able to both continue to refine and sharpen their current approaches to whole-school change and introduce new ones where things are not working.

Developing assessment for learning through the whole school requires systematic and systemic monitoring and evaluation of the impact of assessment for learning on:

- the quality of teaching and learning

- standards

- the leadership and management of change.

Monitoring and evaluation needs to be a distributed process involving all teachers and subject teams. It should be enquiry-based and inform CPD (e.g. through ongoing action research in lessons and coaching). CPD is a journey, not a series of isolated events.

Pupils can provide rich and penetrating evidence and insight into what works well in lessons and what doesn’t. Engaging pupils in school self-evaluation also helps them develop as reflective learners and practitioners in much the same way as it does teachers.

The full report and the associated tools can be accessed here:

Assessment for learning eight schools project report

Leading improvement through the Primary Framework

Creating the picture (Ref: 00283-2007DWO-EN-01): Principles, processes and purposes of assessment in the early years

Self-evaluation

Leading on improvement requires a school leadership team to:

identify improvements for development in learning and teaching

engage all staff in addressing these through a CPD model

establish effective self-improvement processes which will ensure that high standards and excellent practice are achieved and sustained in all areas.

Cycle for school improvement

The model below uses self-evaluation and CPD to address areas for improvement.



It is important to consider how the action planning can be delivered through schools’ performance management processes. However leadership teams decide to engage staff, the focus should be on impact on children’s learning, and key questions should include the following.

What are the school’s priorities?

How well are we doing?

How well should we be doing?

What more can we aim to achieve?

What must we do to make this happen?

What will it look like when we’ve succeeded, and how will we know?

Developing assessment for learning through the whole school requires systematic monitoring and self-evaluation of the impact of assessment for learning on:

the quality of teaching and learning

standards

the leadership and management of change.

Monitoring and self-evaluation also needs to be systemic, that is, a distributed process involving all teachers, teaching assistants, children and parents.



Self-evaluation should be enquiry-based and inform CPD (e.g. through ongoing action research in lessons and coaching).

Leading improvement using the Primary Framework (Ref: 00484-2007DOM-EN) -CPD models

Self-evaluation tools

Primary self-evaluation tool

This online resource is designed to support self-evaluation and produces action points for consideration based on the self-evaluation responses.

Learning and teaching in the primary years: Introductory guide - supporting school improvement (Ref: 0344-2004G)

Assessment for learning – school self-evaluation grid

Supporting school self-evaluation - interactive self-evaluation tool

Leading improvement using the Primary Framework (Ref: 00484-2007BKT-EN)

KEEP: Key elements of effective practice (Ref: 1201-2005G)

Institutional quality standards for gifted and talented learners

A range of self-evaluation tools were used in the Assessment for learning eight schools project. The project website provides examples of how these tools were used.

Primary versions of the teaching and learning review tables developed in this project are available in the ‘Learning and teaching’ section of this site.

Teaching and learning review tables

Leading professional learning through children’s learning

‘Adults are the most important resource in any school.’

(Making Great Progress – Schools with outstanding rates of progression in Key Stage 2, Ref: 00443-2007)

The focus of a primary school is to provide effective learning across a broad and rich curriculum and ensure that all children achieve high standards. Any leadership of school improvement therefore needs to ensure that all adults engaged in the learning process are professionally equipped for the task.

Professional learning that has an impact on classrooms involves:

learning-focused activity

two or more teachers working together

shared planning

joint observation of groups of children to identify what is being learned, by whom and how

interviewing and talking to children

evaluation of learning to gather information

refining the plans for further teaching



understanding what has worked and why

giving feedback to the whole school.

Research has shown us that if professional development is to make a difference to classroom practice, it needs to be collaborative, and to a significant degree contextualised in classrooms.

Leading improvement using the Primary Framework (Ref: 00484-2007BKT-EN)

This booklet provides a wealth of information about effective CPD practices and practical advice.

Particularly useful will be ‘Using the Primary Framework to support…’ (p. 17) and ‘Leading, planning, implementing and evaluating professional learning’ (p. 18).

Practical processes for developing assessment for learning:


Developing strategies that promote classroom dialogue

Involving parents and carers

Assessment for learning involves parents and carers sharing information with teachers and practitioners about children’s development, interests, strengths and needs, as well as schools sharing information with families.

It is important that staff in schools and settings see parents and carers as co-educators, and that there is a two-way flow of information between home and school in which parents’ and carers’ contributions are valued.

This two-way exchange will help the adults involved to plan learning opportunities for children, both at home and at school, that will capture the children’s interests, extend their experiences and ensure that they make progress.

This sharing of information will provide support to parents and carers, helping them to build on children’s learning at home.

This aspect of assessment is a continuing process.

Useful Resources

Postcards for parents and carers on literacy learning

Postcards for parents explaining key concepts in mathematics and suggesting activities

Parents: Partners in Learning: Guidance for schools (Ref: 0413-2004G) and video materials (Ref: 0412-2004GV)

The Learning Journey guides are a resource for parents of children of any age group. They contain information for parents about the subjects their children will be taught at school and what sort of thing they will be learning.

Information and research on working with parents

Reading Connects materials for parents



Sharing information with parents and carers

Many schools and settings provide information about curriculum areas or areas of learning to be covered, usually on a termly or half-termly basis. If the school provides information about what is to be taught and how, parents and carers can become more involved in their children’s learning. Information about the range of assessments should form part of the school prospectus. Parents and carers need clear information about assessment, when it takes place and by whom, and how the information will be shared with them, both formally and informally. It is important to share with parents and carers how work is assessed and how it is linked to further learning. The importance of self-assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment and statutory assessment should be outlined in the policy.

All involved – parents and carers, teachers and practitioners, and other staff – should have a shared understanding of the language of school assessment.

The SNS has produced a website to enable schools to produce guidance which will help parents and carers understand assessment for learning and help them support their children's learning at home.

Parents and carers booklet

Parent and carer meetings and workshops

All schools and settings offer parents and carers the opportunity to discuss their children’s progress and hear about what the children will be learning over the course of a term or a year. In addition, many schools and settings run workshops to discuss specific assessment for learning issues, such as a written marking policy, questioning and dialogue, and use of curricular targets.

It is important to build in discussion about assessment at every opportunity, to emphasise the links between learning and teaching and assessment.

The National Strategies have produced some postcards explaining key concepts in mathematics and literacy which may be useful to share with parents at workshops or meetings.

Interviews between teacher or practitioner and parent or carer

The interview between parent or carer and teacher or practitioner clearly has a place in the partnership agenda. When the child is also actively engaged in the meeting, there are far more opportunities for discussion of the child’s progress, with the evidence available to refer to. Again, this provides an ideal opportunity for the teacher or practitioner to model good practice in giving appropriate feedback. There will be times when parents or carers will want to speak to teachers and practitioners in private, without the child being present, especially when parents or carers have specific concerns or are experiencing difficulties with their children. Only by providing time and sharing information about the child can there be real progress in dealing with such issues. Increasingly, schools and settings have access to family and learning mentors who can provide additional support.



New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance (Ref: 00650-2007BKT-EN)

Teachers and practitioners modelling for parents and carers in the classroom

Inviting parents and carers to spend time in the classroom is a very powerful way of involving them, demonstrating that their support and involvement is highly valued. Having them watch a lesson, in the company of two or three other parents and carers, can provide the opportunity to demonstrate aspects of learning and teaching. Where the focus is on assessment for learning, parents and carers could be prompted to look for:

use of learning objectives, targets and success criteria

assessment techniques (questioning, observing, discussing, self-assessment and peer assessment, feedback strategies)

the plenary session, where progress towards the objectives is discussed and further learning signposted.

Such involvement needs to be well planned, with parents and carers knowing what they should be observing, and should include a follow-up session with the teacher or practitioner where possible. The parents and carers would then have the opportunity to talk about what they have seen, with the teacher or practitioner available to explain, to clarify issues and to engage in the discussion about learning. This approach gives parents and carers the opportunity to observe the teaching strategies and the role of other adults in the classroom, particularly in the area of assessment for learning.

There needs to be an acceptance and a real understanding that parents and carers have not only the skills, but also the right to participate in the assessment process. When the partnership between home and school or setting is effective, children will benefit from joint assessment between parents or carers and teachers or practitioners. Parents’ and carers’ confidence as co-educators will grow, and there will be greater awareness of the value of learning and of the learning process, and greater understanding of strategies to support the child’s development.

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