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The role of formative assessment in raising standards

The role of formative assessment in raising standards

7 February 2024

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‘…formative assessment approaches should be shaped by these priorities; in other words, using formative assessment to determine how far learning in lessons is supporting students to progress towards the curriculum intent.’

Weeden and Lambert, 2006

In September 2023 Ofsted published their geography subject report, ‘Getting our bearings’ which evaluated common strengths and weaknesses across a range of primary and secondary schools that they inspected. It acknowledges improvements to the geography curriculum, particularly at KS3, since the last subject report in 2011.

A main finding related to formative assessment: ‘In schools where leaders had identified the component knowledge (the individual elements that support the learning of more complex ideas) that they wanted pupils to learn in each topic, teachers were able to assess pupils’ progress through the curriculum more accurately. However, in some schools, limited formative assessment was taking place, even when leaders believed that this was happening regularly.’

This finding requires careful analysis to unpick what is really being stated about assessment, in particular, formative assessment, and how it interconnects with progression, curriculum and pedagogy.

The importance of formative assessment

Formative assessment, also known as Assessment for Learning (AfL), is the day-to-day assessment used in geography classrooms. It is about finding evidence of students’ progress in learning and using this to feedback and inform their next steps in learning.

Formative assessment strategies include questioning, feedback, peer and self-assessment and formative use of summative tests. Gardner, Weeden and Butt (2015) provide a more detailed overview of formative assessment (Ch4).

Ofsted’s (2023) subject report describes using formative assessment well:

‘129. In most schools, teachers used formative assessment well throughout lessons. They asked well-planned questions that helped them to identify misconceptions and check for understanding. When issues were uncovered, they paused the lesson and retaught material. This was made easier when the curriculum identified likely misconceptions and the core component knowledge that pupils must secure before moving on.’

Both comments by Ofsted point to effective use of formative assessment requiring deep thinking about the curriculum, with clarity about curriculum intent, and how to plan a curriculum that is coherent and sequenced to best support pupil progress in geography, to be then be implemented in lessons.

A curriculum with progress and assessment at its heart

Ofsted explains implementation as ‘the way the intended curriculum is taught and assessed’. Ofsted (2019), p41.

Gardner (2021) points out that, the removal of levels (a system of progression and assessment separate to the curriculum) allows for the planning of a curriculum with progression and assessment more naturally placed at its heart. As a new curriculum is implemented, teachers need to be clear about the curriculum intent, and how it is planned to support student progress towards the vision, or end point, of the key stage.

A clear strategic vision, a statement of the intent of what the curriculum is trying to achieve for students, is key. It provides the purpose, or the ‘why’, of learning for every stepping stone of the journey leading to its achievement by students. It is really important, therefore, that this vision is shared with pupils, so they develop a sense of what geography is for and how they are making progress towards the vision. To be effective, formative assessment needs to be clearly connected to the vision and the journey.

Weeden and Lambert (2006) make the point that good geography lessons should provide students with access to rich and varied resources of geographical data, opportunities for enquiry in the real world, and utilise the potential of technologies to support data handling, processing and communication. They maintain that formative assessment approaches should be shaped by these priorities; in other words, using formative assessment to determine how far learning in lessons is supporting students to progress towards the curriculum intent.

Helpful resources

Hopkins, J; Gardner, D; AESIG (2023) GA Guidance on progression and assessment in geography, provides a useful starting point for designing a curriculum with progression and assessment at its heart. It identifies three progression strands to embed across a curriculum world contextual knowledge, an understanding of geographical ideas, and geographical enquiry and skills, with benchmark expectations for each strand for ages, 7,9,11,14 and 16.

Gardner, D (2021) Planning your coherent 11-16 geography curriculum : a design toolkit, Geographical Association – provides a 7-step curriculum design process supported with planning tools for teachers, demonstrating how the GA’s progression framework can be used to design a coherent and sequenced curriculum. Chapter 6 explains how to align the most appropriate pedagogies, resources and approaches to assessment to support the implementation of the vision for the curriculum intent.

Baulcomb, K, Gardner D. AESIG presentation, Progression, assessment and curriculum design working together; a classroom collaboration GA Annual Conference (2023).

This session launched the new edition of the GA’s progression framework, providing an overview of the interlinked process of curriculum planning, progression and assessment in geography.

Geographical Association ITE geography support for trainees and ECTs Formative Assessment, provides a detailed and very helpful overview of approaches to formative assessment.

Weeden, P. (2017) ‘Assessing Geography’ in Jones, M. (ed) The Handbook of Secondary Geography. Sheffield: Geographical Association. Chapter 14.

References

Gardner, D., Weeden, P. and Butt, G. (2015) Assessing progress in Your Key Stage 3 Geography Curriculum (eBook), Geographical Association.

Ofsted (2019) School inspection handbook: Handbook for inspecting schools in England under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

Ofsted (2023) Getting our bearings : a geography subject report.

Weeden, P. and Lambert, D. (2006) Geography Inside the Black Box. London: NFER Nelson.

The Getting our bearings series

The Getting our bearings blog series is a collection of posts which signpost GA support for some of the themes which were flagged in the recent Ofsted geography subject report and which have also come through strongly in our work with teachers.