ATTAINMENT

We all know that the purpose of formative assessment is to make students aware of the standard of work they are producing, and more importantly, to help them understand how they can improve. Too often, however, assessment becomes just another formality, so entrenched in the system that we forget to stop and think about both its effectiveness and the learner experience. Sometimes, feedback simply does not translate into improvements, and it can be frustrating for everyone involved. How do we resolve this? The answer lies in allowing the student to become an active participant in the process, through anonymously comparing and critiquing an entire cohort of work online.

Would you pay £25 per student to raise reading ages by an average of 43 months in only six weeks? Here’s how one school is achieving huge impact on a budget.

This is a continuation of our case study from St Philip Evans R.C. Primary School in South Wales - read part one here. The Giglets literacy resource enables schools to dramatically increase the number of texts available for classroom and home access - all within a simple and cost-effective budget that is agreed in advance. Providing a growing library of hundreds of texts in English and in about 30 other languages means that the school's library is always kept fresh.

There has been a wealth of studies examining what shapes the perfect leader. One of the traits of authentic leadership is the consideration of soft as well as hard data, but are decisions based on non-quantitative data possible in the current funding climate? Since Sound Training was established in 2011, we have worked with hundreds of schools with the same goal - to raise literacy levels and achievement across the curriculum. The school leaders and teachers we work with may have lots in common, but one thing that stands out is innovative leadership.

Catrin Parry-Jones, headteacher at West Earlham Junior School in Norwich, discusses how her school has raised standards and attainment:

EduKit, an online platform set up by youth workers and parents, is now allowing teachers to post and review recommendations on programmes that they have used or seen and considered beneficial. This feature will, for the first time, allow teachers to be able to share their views on which programmes were most engaging for pupils and, crucially, had the most meaningful short and / or long term impact.

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