Today, the DfE published Five things you need to know about changes to primary assessment, in which they state:
“4. Teachers won’t have to fill out 6,120 check boxes”, referring directly, and rather rudely, to Mary Bousted’s article.
Interestingly, they then go on to talk about the fact that teachers aren’t obliged to use the exemplar folders, rather than explaining in what way these are "false claims".
What she actually said was that teacher would have to make “6,120 assessments” for a class of 30 year 6 pupils. Ms Bousted didn’t mention check boxes. She was talking about judgements.
In the Interim teacher assessment frameworks at the end of key stage 2, it states, very clearly in my view, that
“Teachers must base their teacher assessment judgement on a broad range of evidence from across the curriculum for each pupil.”
My understanding is that STA interprets this as being 5-6 pieces of writing showing a range of genres.
The same document also states, again, very clearly that
“To demonstrate that pupils have met a standard within this interim framework, teachers will need to have evidence that a pupil demonstrates attainment of all of the statements within that standard and all the statements in the preceding standard(s).” (their emphasis)
Now, the criteria for Working towards the expected standard contain 15 statements and those for Working at the expected standard contain 16. (If you consider all the distinct elements within the statements, the number of judgements this number jumps to 22)
The directions state that “Some of the statements contain qualifiers (some and most) to indicate that pupils will not always consistently demonstrate the skill required.”
Which indicates that the consistent use of the elements in the statements is necessary, and in some cases teachers will need to make a judgement about the degree of consistency. This means that teachers will need to assess each piece of work against the statements to establish consistency.
SO, teachers will need to make all those judgements. While the document doesn’t demand tick sheets, unless teachers have memories capable of recalling all of those judgements, they will need some method of recording them all: teachers need to “demonstrate that pupils have met a standard” and “will need to have evidence that a pupil demonstrates attainment of all of the statements”, especially as what was known in previous years as ‘moderation’ is now termed ‘verification’.
It seems to me that in this failure to demonstrate understanding of the point about the burdensome nature of the writing assessment, the DfE shows themselves deficient in the KS2 Reading standards, namely their inability to,
“summarise main ideas, identifying key details and using quotations for illustration”
I suspect too, that they might also have issues with KS2 maths, “The pupil can use formal methods to solve multi-step problems”
“4. Teachers won’t have to fill out 6,120 check boxes”, referring directly, and rather rudely, to Mary Bousted’s article.
Interestingly, they then go on to talk about the fact that teachers aren’t obliged to use the exemplar folders, rather than explaining in what way these are "false claims".
What she actually said was that teacher would have to make “6,120 assessments” for a class of 30 year 6 pupils. Ms Bousted didn’t mention check boxes. She was talking about judgements.
In the Interim teacher assessment frameworks at the end of key stage 2, it states, very clearly in my view, that
“Teachers must base their teacher assessment judgement on a broad range of evidence from across the curriculum for each pupil.”
My understanding is that STA interprets this as being 5-6 pieces of writing showing a range of genres.
The same document also states, again, very clearly that
“To demonstrate that pupils have met a standard within this interim framework, teachers will need to have evidence that a pupil demonstrates attainment of all of the statements within that standard and all the statements in the preceding standard(s).” (their emphasis)
Now, the criteria for Working towards the expected standard contain 15 statements and those for Working at the expected standard contain 16. (If you consider all the distinct elements within the statements, the number of judgements this number jumps to 22)
The directions state that “Some of the statements contain qualifiers (some and most) to indicate that pupils will not always consistently demonstrate the skill required.”
Which indicates that the consistent use of the elements in the statements is necessary, and in some cases teachers will need to make a judgement about the degree of consistency. This means that teachers will need to assess each piece of work against the statements to establish consistency.
SO, teachers will need to make all those judgements. While the document doesn’t demand tick sheets, unless teachers have memories capable of recalling all of those judgements, they will need some method of recording them all: teachers need to “demonstrate that pupils have met a standard” and “will need to have evidence that a pupil demonstrates attainment of all of the statements”, especially as what was known in previous years as ‘moderation’ is now termed ‘verification’.
It seems to me that in this failure to demonstrate understanding of the point about the burdensome nature of the writing assessment, the DfE shows themselves deficient in the KS2 Reading standards, namely their inability to,
“summarise main ideas, identifying key details and using quotations for illustration”
I suspect too, that they might also have issues with KS2 maths, “The pupil can use formal methods to solve multi-step problems”