Primary, Secondary & Special Schools

Assessment for Learning

A school's success is almost entirely dependent on its students' achievement. Where students, teachers and leaders have weak or incomplete information on students' progress everyone in the organisation, from students to headteachers, lacks the information they require to take their next steps with confidence. High quality assessment and the use of data lay right at the heart of effective and accountable schooling, hence the reason that Ofsted inspections tend to start with an examination of how well students are progressing and how deeply the school understands its learners.

Partnership with EdisonLearning brings training, materials and expertise that is geared to make assessment work effectively for all members of the school community so that student's have challenging and tangible goals and are reflective about how they can achieve them, teachers use Assessment for Learning strategies on a day to day basis, managers are able to pinpoint areas of underachievement and senior leaders can monitor and plan strategically.

The integration of work on Assessment for Learning with the other strands of the EdisonLearning design creates a context in which assessment data works for the school rather than lying in obscure databases on management systems.

Dashboards that configure data transparently for different users target effort and expertise upon acting upon data rather than finding and manipulating them. Through partnership with EdisonLearning schools develop and embed systems that are constantly responsive to students' needs that include:

  • Termly Learning Conferences that are based on a holistic view of the learner covering both curriculum and core learning skills so that students, parents and teachers can plan together (linked to the Student & Family Support strand)
  • Enhancing teachers skills in assessing accurately, sharing learning outcomes and planning self and peer assessment opportunities within their teaching (linked to the Pedagogy & Curriculum strand)
  • Enabling managers to identify clearly areas of underachievement within groups and cohorts and target support for both students and teachers more effectively
  • Providing a secure basis for senior leaders to monitor standards, forecast performance management and plan strategically
  • Developing a cycle that feeds timely data to school teams where best practice can be shared to address emergent issues (linking to the Leadership and Learning Environment strands).

    • In short, the Assessment for Learning strand of the EdisonLearning design (in conjunction with the other strands) enables schools to be more proactive and to invest their precious human and material resources in ways that are more likely to bring about a lasting impact on students' achievement.