Developing the use of Success Criteria

Monday 3rd February 2014

Learning Objectives to Success Criteria

Learning Objectives:

“What are we going to learn?”

Activities:

“How are we going to learn?”

Success Criteria:

“How do we know if we have succeeded?”

‘If learners are to take more responsibility for their own learning, then they need to know what they are going to learn, how they will recognise when they have succeeded and why they should learn it in the first place.’(An Intro to AfL, Learning Unlimited, 2004)

What Are Success Criteria?

‘… success criteria summarise the key steps or ingredients the pupil needs in order to fulfill the learning objective – the main things to do, include or focus on.’

Shirley Clarke

Why Are Success Criteria Important?

• Improve understanding

• Empower pupils

• Encourage independent learning

• Enable accurate feedback

Recipe analogy - “making a cake”

English – the ingredients that need to go into the cake

Maths – the method used to make the cake

English Maths

Outcome

Learning objectiveWe are learning to …

Write a story starter

What will you need to do to achieve this?

Success criteria

Remember to :

• describe the setting

• describe the characters

• explain the problem

• use powerful adjectives

English - Ingredients of a cake

You have one minute to draw a house...

Talk Partners

• What is successful about your partner’s drawing?

• What could be done to improve your drawing?

Mark your partner’s work

• Four square windows 30• Disabled parking space by gate 20• All rooms on ground floor 10• Shrubs and flowers in garden 10• Intercom on door 20• Flat path leading to garden shed 10

Excellence model

How do we currently use success criteria in English?

The ingredients of learning objectives

‘Any learner needs to know what they are learning to do and what they will be judged on.’ Gilbert (2010)

Not ‘Guess what is inside the teacher’s head but informed learning.’

Tools for equipping learners to self- and peer-assess.

Separate the learning objective from the context of the lesson

Learning objective muddled with context:

We are learning to write a traditional story about Jack and the beanstalk

What should this be ?

Learning objectiveWe are learning to …

use a number line to divide (whole numbers without remainders)

What will you need to do to achieve this?

Success criteria

Remember to :

1. Draw a number line

2. Start from 0 and jump in steps of the number you are dividing by

3. Stop jumping when you reach the target number

4. Count how many jumps you did

Maths - The method or process of making the cake

Outcome vs process success criteria:

Outcome based success criteria, which consist of a statement of what the child will be able to do if they meet the learning objective, e.g.

Objective:To be able to round two-digit numbers to the nearest 10.Outcome based success criteriaI can round two-digit numbers to the nearest 10.

However, ‘outcome based’ success criteria are far less helpful in maths. Success criteria in the form of ‘I can’ statements e.g. ‘To be able to partition three-digit numbers’ leading to success criteria in the form of ‘I can partition three-digit numbers’ were only useful in terms of enabling the children to recognise if they had achieved the objective. What this type of success criteria fails to do is support the pupil and teacher in identifying barriers preventing the child from achieving the objective; neither does it help to identify the next steps for the child

Process success criteria, which are the steps that could help the child achieve the learning objective, e.g.

Objective:To be able to round two-digit numbers to the nearest 10.

Process success criteria:- Find the number on the number line- Identify the multiple of 10 at either side of the number- Count the jumps to the multiple of 10 before- Count the jumps to the multiple of 10 after- Round the number to whichever is nearest- If the last digit is 5, round the number up to the next

multiple of 10

Process Success Criteria and Maths

So success criteria in maths are a tool that are particularly useful for learning written methods of calculation – where there is a process or method to undertake a calculation

It is not a method or a list of instructions about how to carry out an activity in a maths.

Remember to….. (skill/method)Choose/decide whether (strategy/sequence)AT1 process/problem solving

Build the tallest tower you can using spaghetti and marshmallows

Can you write a set of success criteria for making your marshmallow tower – remember to focus of the method you undertook.

Discuss what the process success criteria might be for solving a multiplication problem using the grid method might be?

Rather than saying ‘I can’t do decomposition’ or ‘I can’t do the grid method’ the use of process success criteria allows children and teachers to identify which aspect of a concept or skill the child had difficulty with.

For example, with difficulties in grid method, the teacher and child might identify that the child could not use related facts. This can bring the barrier to learning into much sharper focus and therefore made it a more manageable step to overcome.

Ultimately pupils need to work independently without relying on the steps in place.

If higher ability children don’t need to use process success criteria, teachers should ensure that they are still able to explain methods and strategies, which promotes metacognition and the use of vocabulary.There is the need to develop the mathematical oracy of all children, including those who had a tendency to verbalise explanations as ‘I just know’.

In maths you should not agonise over putting the process success criteria in place in every lesson. Some learning, like aspects of shape, just don’t lend themselves to the process. If it’s not going to enhance the children’s learning, don’t do it!

It is particularly useful when working with methods of written calculation. To that end, we need to have a written calculations policy in place that is being followed by all staff for the use of process success criteria to be successful (aligned to the New Curriculum).

Possible ways to develop pupil generated success criteria

• Prove it / doing it wrong

• A finished product

• Comparison of two products

• Investigating why someone has got it wrong

• Teacher demonstration

• Retrospective generating

• Revisiting success criteria

Areas of maths were they are especially useful for:

• aspects of place value, ordering and rounding, e.g. multiplying or dividing by 10/100/1000

• many aspects of calculation, including written methods

• areas of the measures curriculum, such as measuring angles using a protractor, using a ruler, calculating area and perimeter and reading a scale

• aspects of shape such as reading and plotting coordinates

• constructing graphs and diagrams, including Venn and Carroll diagrams

• solving word problems, i.e. carrying out the calculation once it has been identified

but was less helpful when:

• exploring properties of number or shape

• interpreting data

• solving word problems, i.e. identifying the operation

Recipe analogy - “making a cake”

English – the ingredients that need to go into the cake

Maths – the process or method used to make the cake. As not every aspect of learning in maths has a clear process - they won’t always be necessary.

Final messages