Teachers' Standard 6

Make accurate and productive use of assessment

know and understand how to assess the relevant subject and curriculum areas, including statutory assessment requirements
make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils’ progress
use relevant data to monitor progress, set targets, and plan subsequent lessons
give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and encourage pupils to respond to the feedback.

Early Career Teachers can find out more by listening to our podcasts

Our short podcasts offer advice and tips from our Quality Assurance Officers and expert guest speakers, who look at what ECTs should focus on to meet the different teachers’ standards, what great practice looks like for ECTs, how they can build evidence and work with their mentor to pass their assessment , as well as insights into what assessors are looking for in the assessment of the Teachers’ Standards.

Prior knowledge: A guide for ECTs

Isabel Instone, the Secondary Curriculum Lead at Ark Teacher Training explores what ECTs need to know about prior knowledge and how they can apply it to their practice for their assessment.

The Assessment, Evaluation and Adaptation Cycle: A guide for ECTs

Ryan Kendall, the Primary Curriculum Lead at Ark Teacher Training talks about The Assessment, Evaluation and Adaptation Cycle. He discusses why it is important and how ECTs can develop and evidence this area of practice for their assessment.

The Assessment of Teachers’ Standard 6

Tony Dowling, a Quality Assurance Officer for NTA gives his advice on how ECTs can meet and evidence Teachers’ Standard 6 and shares his insights into what assessors are looking for when assessing this standard.

Top Tips for mentors on writing assessments for ECTs

Click below for advice and tips from NTA’s Quality Assurance Officers on writing ECT assessments.

Evidence

Where do I get evidence from to show that the ECT is meeting TS6?

Evidence needs to demonstrate that the Early Career Teacher (ECT) can make accurate and productive use of assessment. Examples of where this evidence can be found include:

Book Looks: g. where activities have exposed and addressed misconceptions
Lesson plans: g. where the lesson plan includes formative assessment tasks / tasks to check for prior knowledge and pre-existing misconceptions / where lesson plans use pupil data to plan activities.
Samples of marking: e.g. when marking addresses misconceptions resulting in students making good progress / when marking uses abbreviations and codes, ensuring that it is time-efficient.
Feedback from more experienced colleagues regarding joint marking / standardisation exercises that demonstrates that the ECT has a good understanding of assessment.
Lesson observations: e.g. with a focus on effective AFL activities such as multiple-choice questions or exit tickets to identify knowledge gaps and misconceptions, and result in teaching which addresses these.
Learner voice during a lesson observation: e.g. learners explaining how the ECT gives verbal feedback during lessons, that allow learners to progress.
Minutes of department meetings: e.g. which detail the ECT’s involvement in moderation.
Pupil data logs where the ECT has recorded data which is accurate and useful for improving pupil outcomes.

For more advice on how to get evidence for ECT assessments, watch NTA's short presentation below.

Evaluative Statements

Points to consider when writing evaluative statements for Teachers’ Standard 6

Does the ECT:

consistently provide relevant feedback to their students (both verbally and in written form) which enables them to develop their thinking skills?
utilise highly effective questioning techniques which demonstrate the understanding of learners, highlighting gaps in prior knowledge and misconceptions?
have a good understanding of mark schemes?
make their marking manageable, e.g. by using verbal feedback in place of written feedback, prioritising the highlighting of errors related to misconceptions and using abbreviations and codes in written feedback?
ensure the feedback they provide is of high quality and acted upon e.g. by giving students specific actions and time to respond to feedback?
monitor pupils work during lessons to check for understanding?
use data to draw conclusions about what pupils have learned and plan subsequent activities accordingly?

Example evaluative statements

‘X plans activities to regularly check learning and is able to adjust her teaching when these reveal misconceptions or gaps in prior knowledge amongst her students, this is a feature in many of her lessons and was observed during lesson observations on 20^th April, 15^th June and in book looks on 10^th January and 6^th March’.

‘Y’s marking of year 6 homework is consistently accurate, her follow up practice activities are designed so that students have to engage with her feedback and misconceptions are addressed and students actively respond to their feedback. This has been observed in weekly departmental walk-throughs and book looks on 14^th October and 15^th December’.

How to write an evaluative statement

An evaluative statement should include a qualitative statement along with something that is being judged, the extent to which it occurs and an example that helps to demonstrate the circumstances in which this was perceived or observed. This could be described as an ESEE statement where:

E = Evaluation
S = Subject
Ext = Extent
Exa = Example

Areas For Development

Areas to consider when setting targets for teachers’ standard 6

Quality of feedback: is feedback accurate, regular and does it provide focused guidance and actions on how to improve, requiring students to respond to it?
Knowledge of statutory assessment requirements: does the ECT have a good understanding of the relevant subject and curriculum areas?
Purpose of assessment: does the ECT have a clear rationale when assessing pupils? / Does the ECT assess students’ understanding, prior knowledge and misconceptions?
Effectiveness of assessment: is the ECT able to accurately assess student knowledge and understanding?

Development activities:

joint marking exercises / standardisation exercises to develop their practice.
specific reading to develop their knowledge of assessment (see Early Career Framework for examples) and ask them to adapt their practice accordingly.

Example targets

‘Develop your knowledge of KS4 assessment by reading an examiner’s report and providing feedback on salient points at a department meeting’.

‘Devise an exit ticket to check for pupil understanding with the help of your mentor and agree to use the activity in your next lesson observation. Use data collected in this activity to plan the subsequent lesson. Use the feedback from your mentor to plan similar future activities’.

How to write an area for development

When designing areas for development there should be a clear line of sight with the evaluative statement.

Focussed	Is the afd focussed on the specific standard?

Practical	Does the afd provide a practical action?

Developmental	Is the afd likely to develop knowledge, skill, understanding?

Achievable	Is the afd realistic?

Measurable	Will the afd be able to measure this quantitatively or qualitatively?

For more detailed guidance on writing a good assessment, read the following guide.

60 seconds with a recently qualified teacher

Recently qualified teacher Suhail Dhanji talks about what helped him pass his induction.

1.How did you develop your knowledge of what effective feedback looks like?

I observed other teachers’ interactions with students when giving feedback. There’s so much that goes into it! You have to think about your tone of voice, your body language, the student who you’re giving the feedback to and their individual needs. I found that observing a wide variety of teachers having these conversations made it much easier for me to develop my understanding of how to give effective feedback.

2.What advice would you give to an ECT trying to develop their practice of giving regular feedback?

My advice to ECTs is to remember that each student has a unique set of needs. When giving feedback, try to bear this in mind – it’s so easy to focus on the ‘negatives’, or the targets for next time. Feedback is both positive and constructive. Of course, you’re giving them targets, but don’t forget to applaud and celebrate what went well. I like to always find at least one positive to motivate students before moving onto the targets.

3. Do you have any top tips on making marking manageable?

The best approach to marking is to think about it logically. What’s the top priority? Think about your exam classes, and your timetable – if you’re not going to see a group for another week, you can likely get away with saving their marking for later.

4.Is there anything you think is a must read to help you to develop your practice of giving effective feedback?

It might sound obvious, but the first port of call is always to read your exam specifications for your GCSE and A-Level courses! The best feedback comes from teachers who fully comprehend the demands and requirements of the exam that their students will eventually sit. For more general support, I’d really recommend ‘Embedded Formative Assessment’ by Dylan William on how to effectively feed-back to students.

5.What challenges did you face when trying to get students to respond meaningfully to feedback and how did you overcome this?

I believe that every teacher, regardless of how long they’ve been teaching, will always face issues of getting students to effectively read and respond to feedback. You’ll find it happens every year. My method of overcoming this is to turn written feedback into a task – get your students to respond to their feedback! Pose your targets as a question, which requires the students to respond to or improve upon their work; this way you can monitor how meaningfully students are responding to your feedback.

6.What did you find useful that your mentor did to help you develop in this area?

My mentor made sure that all my feedback was ‘purposeful’. He made me question “what will my students get from this feedback?” – which was actually really good advice. He advised me to dedicate a whole lesson to giving feedback, which at first felt a little daunting, but the students took so much out of the lesson!

7.How did you evidence this for your assessment?

I had my principal observe this feedback lesson with a Y12 group (my department were having an OFSTED mock-deep dive at the time) and asked him for a copy of his observation notes. The timing worked out really well for me, but anyone could observe you doing this – your mentor, your HoD, or a senior member of the department.

8.What superpower do you wish you had?

Divination/seeing the future. I’d make decisions super quickly!

9.When are you at your happiest?

I’m at my happiest when I’m travelling. Exploring new cities and cultures is food for the soul!

Suhail Dhanji
Assistant Progress Leader for Sixth Form, Teacher of Philosophy & Politics, Milton Keynes

Early Career Framework

The Early Career Framework outlines what early career teachers should learn about, as well as what they need to learn how to do. It is based on expert guidance and research evidence. The framework should be central to all ECTs’ development.

Click below to see the “Learn that…” and “Learn how to…” statements.

Learn that...

Effective assessment is critical to teaching because it provides teachers with information about pupils’ understanding and needs.
Good assessment helps teachers avoid being over-influenced by potentially misleading factors, such as how busy pupils appear.
Before using any assessment, teachers should be clear about the decision it will be used to support and be able to justify its use.
To be of value, teachers use information from assessments to inform the decisions they make; in turn, pupils must be able to act on feedback for it to have an effect.
High-quality feedback can be written or verbal; it is likely to be accurate and clear, encourage further effort, and provide specific guidance on how to improve.
Over time, feedback should support pupils to monitor and regulate their own learning.
Working with colleagues to identify efficient approaches to assessment is important; assessment can become onerous and have a disproportionate impact on workload.

Learn how to...

Avoid common assessment pitfalls, by:

Planning formative assessment tasks linked to lesson objectives and thinking ahead about what would indicate understanding (e.g. by using hinge questions to pinpoint knowledge gaps).
Drawing conclusions about what pupils have learned by looking at patterns of performance over a number of assessments (e.g. appreciating that assessments draw inferences about learning from performance).
Choosing, where possible, externally validated materials, used in controlled conditions when required to make summative assessments.

Check prior knowledge and understanding during lessons, by:

Using assessments to check for prior knowledge and pre-existing misconceptions.
Structuring tasks and questions to enable the identification of knowledge gaps and misconceptions (e.g. by using common misconceptions within multiple-choice questions).
Prompting pupils to elaborate when responding to questioning to check that a correct answer stems from secure understanding.
Monitoring pupil work during lessons, including checking for misconceptions.

Provide high-quality feedback, by:

Focusing on specific actions for pupils and providing time for pupils to respond to feedback.
Appreciating that pupils’ responses to feedback can vary depending on a range of social factors (e.g. the message the feedback contains or the age of the child).
Scaffolding self-assessment by sharing model work with pupils, highlighting key details.
Thinking carefully about how to ensure feedback is specific and helpful when using peer- or self-assessment.

Make marking manageable and effective, by:

Recording data only when it is useful for improving pupil outcomes.
Working with colleagues to identify efficient approaches to marking and alternative approaches to providing feedback (e.g. using whole class feedback or well supported peer- and self-assessment).
Using verbal feedback during lessons in place of written feedback after lessons where possible.
Understanding that written marking is only one form of feedback.
Reducing the opportunity cost of marking (e.g. by using abbreviations and codes in written feedback).
Prioritising the highlighting of errors related to misunderstandings, rather than careless mistakes when marking.

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