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On exclusion; a Closed File

27/5/2018

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Emotive, often to an almost explosive degree, exclusion is a word that, unlike marmite, which can be a case of like or dislike, brings forth bile from different standpoints, aimed at people who may hold contrary positions. The extremes of any behaviour-related decisions are likely never to agree.

For what it’s worth, I think schools should have the option to exclude a child, for example to safeguard the others physically or mentally, from violence or bullying. But, I would expect there to be records of intervention or of general school approaches that ensure that civic expectations are articulated, carried through, or lived in daily life through the adult models.

Where, in a former existence, I visited schools to look at their inclusion approaches, those operating in very challenging environments had multiple layers of intervention, should that be necessary, enabling either staff or children to support self-regulation, or to seek to stabilise an individual when situations became untenable. At the extreme, and despite their best efforts, these schools held to the option of exclusion.

In an even earlier existence, as a headteacher for sixteen years, I excluded two children during that time.

I wrote about the school behaviour policy in an earlier blog, but, to simplify, as a Primary school, we had three principles, based on responsibility for self, behaviour towards others and towards our environment. These were enhanced by the adoption of the Hampshire Constabulary “Five Golden Rules”. The essence of these complementary approaches allowed stories from wide sources in assembles, exploration of narratives in class from class books, PSHE, or P4C. They also supported restorative discussions when children, inevitably, fell out.

One of the exclusions resulted in a “fair cop” approach by the parent, with relatively easy restoration.

The other resulted in a file that will stay in my loft for a further five years, even though I am technically retired. In many ways, it should have been another easy restoration, but one of the parents decided to appeal to the Governors, which resulted in a hearing, finding for my decision. That resulted in an appeal to the local area education officer, again finding in my favour, followed by a County investigation, by which time the child had moved school and been excluded, resulting in the head having a Governor review, which found in their favour… you know the rest.

In the meantime, my email inbox was full of regular missives with invective that I have rarely heard, even during a rugby and other sport earlier life, but which I printed on a “just in case” basis.

It was the call from the Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCFS), one of the incarnations of the current DoE, that became worrying, as they were then investigating a complaint against the County. A senior official would be visiting to investigate the original situation, to seek to understand the background and the dynamics of the situation. The multiple-page report found in favour of the County and all associated. We waited for any subsequent escalation of the appeals process, perhaps to some form of judicial review.

The several months that this process took were distracting, demoralising and destabilising for many people, throughout the County. Keeping one’s mind on the day job required significant focus. It often reminded me of the truism, that headship can be a very lonely job; there were things I couldn’t share, with anyone.

Exclusion is never to be taken lightly.

The ripples affect many people in many ways, and, in extreme cases, for many years. My thoughts go out to any head facing complex situations.
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Feed Forward Expectations?

21/5/2018

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While in a school today, the teacher was dealing with children reaching the end of their workbooks, with only a few days to go to half term. She explained that every child receives a new book after half term, which them transfers with the child into their new classroom, to continue.

I have long been an advocate of children taking their work books from one year into the next and to use these, enabling expectations in September to be similar to those from July, based on simple comparison of the work in the new class with earlier examples. This was a structure that I expected within my own school when a HT, occasionally copied by colleague schools. It avoided the occasionally articulated “I’ll get use to them by half term.”
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In addition, there was a two week “getting to know” topic planned for September, totally in the teacher control, to re-establish working habits; see planning blog. There was also a school-wide expectation on the use of the workbooks; example (click for blog)
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For many years, there have been studies that showed between year expectations may be different, sometimes significantly so, with inter-school transition having the greatest drop. I spoke about this at Beyond Levels #LearningFirst Bath.

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​Teacher standard 2 is progress and outcomes. In September, in any year, a blank book does not provide a baseline, so a child can seek to depress a teacher expectation, should they be so minded. There is a “truism” that there is a drop off in achievement during the summer holiday. This approach tests that assumption.

To have previous examples provides a simple baseline expectation that may not be provided by written or oral reports. At it’s simplest, it can be as easy as having one piece of work stuck into the workbook as an aide memoire, but, to have extended examples could provide a greater reference point, for both teacher and child, enabling early interventions (TS6&5) to seek to regain earlier achievement levels.
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It supports teacher decision-making, but also saves money on books… what's not to like?

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Mentoring Mentors

20/5/2018

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​Everyone is capable of teaching another, especially in an area where one has an expertise that can be shared with the other. This could be a specific area such as carpentry or pottery, or a much broader entity that constitutes a professional qualification.

Mentoring, on the other hand, can be more challenging, as it may need to be built into a longer-term enterprise. Businesses of all kinds provide line management arrangements, where a senior oversees the work of several juniors. It is the working of this relationship that determines whether it is mentoring and developmental or judgemental and purely target driven.

Both approaches exist, but, I would want to argue that the mentoring, developmental approach, supported by clearly articulated goals, has the capacity to significantly enhance an organisation, where more simplistic judgements may diminish.

For a number of years, as a Linked Tutor for two universities and as tutor and quality assurance with a Teaching School, I have taken a number of roles in developing mentors, from initial familiarisation with the role, to overseeing mentor development throughout the training year.

As a relative outsider, I have an interesting role within any particular school; bringing some expertise to share, which will then be enacted through the lens of the mentoring teacher and colleagues, within the context of class specifics and school resources. Anyone who’s been in teaching for any length of time will know that there is a need to adapt to changing circumstances. This, in itself, can be challenging for a new entrant, who may well need to be supported in this regard, especially if they have come from environments where they have been “in control” of their in-tray.

As a personal preference, I would wish to see any school taking trainees, from any provider, considering themselves as mentoring (training) schools, and I have, on occasion, trained a whole staff, particularly where they are entering a training partnership for the first time. In this way, everyone becomes a part of a mentoring team, sharing responsibilities and responding appropriately to requests from trainees for advice or information. It also helps to create a self-help, collegiate environment; the mentor does not then have to be a member of management.

Where the classteacher is the mentor, able to offer informal as well as more formal development commentaries, I use the idea of the “parrot on the shoulder” as an aide memoire. In other words it’s ok for a mentor to advise a course of action during a lesson, to embed specific skills in timely fashion. A debrief after the event is much less effective, as it may rely on remembering specific points in the lesson.
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Over the past few years, the role of the mentor has really come to the fore and, in keeping with this, I argued for greater formalisation of the mentor training being offered within the Teaching School and was asked to develop a series of meetings that would be held in school time, with different school hosts, to consider the dynamics of the training year and to pre-empt the needs for the following six to eight weeks.

We start at 1.30pm, to allow for time to eat as well as travel to the venue.

All mentors and trainees come together in July, before the training year, to have time to converse, to consider the initial paperwork needs and familiarise themselves with the course demands, including the mentor and teacher standards.
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It is helpful if annual diaries are planned with overview aims, so that all parties are aware of course demands as well as school requirements.

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In addition, as I make six visits to trainees during the year, one per half term, to undertake a joint observation with the mentor, to check progress and consider personal development needs. These dates are arranged and disseminated for the year, with detailed visits confirmed half a term ahead, to avoid too many changes. Mentor training meetings inform visits and vice versa.

The training overview covers:-
September (Focus Teacher Standards 87143). Creating a positive training context; order and organisation; revisit the Teacher Standards and paperwork (tracking development), especially trainee using reflective journal effectively. Weekly developmental dialogue.

November. Focus on Teacher Standards 265; knowing the children, positive, supportive interactions and reflecting on outcomes (light-touch moderation). Starting to think holistically over a known timescale; weekly/fortnightly expectations. Term end reflections and summation of specific children.

January. Second placement Repeating the sequence of the first two meetings, especially for new mentors (identify individual needs for follow-up visits) Moderation in different key stage, annotated examples and reflections. Lead to summative dialogue. NB. During the short experience, the substantive mentor visits the short practice school to undertake a joint observation as a form of moderation and mutual support.

February/March Return to substantive placement, rapidly to 80% teaching load. Mentor support to keep up with paperwork and to provide detailed coaching advice. Looking at the learning needs of specific individuals and teacher interactions to enhance learning opportunities.

May/June. Whole year reflections, preparation for final reports and judgements, evaluation of mentor roles and training, adjustments for following year.

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Mentors value the opportunity to get together with other mentor colleagues, as much as the direct training, to compare notes and experiences. No-one is THE expert; everyone shares their expertise.

While there are formal elements of paperwork to be fulfilled, much of the experience hinges on the personal relationships that start in the July before the training year, between mentor and trainee and within the trainee group; the trainees seem to get together and organise a social media group as a support network.

Training to become a teacher is mostly down to supported self-development through guided reflection.

The day to day life of a teacher is a solitary, or small team existence, within their own classroom, so trainees have to become self-reliant, independent team leaders and members.

Within a well-planned structure, they have a chance.

Where trainees struggle, it is usually down to communication issues, of curriculum expectations/late planning details, in either direction. Schools can forget that they are hosting trainees right up until the end of the course, with the school providing much of the front-line practical training, whether HE or SD routes.

If I had to try to summarise the “steps to potential success, I’d propose:-
·         Work in and as a team to…
·         Plan effectively over different time scales, including timely meetings with support colleagues and appropriate in-house experts,
·         talk regularly, communicate clearly,
·         reflect and evaluate together; honestly,
·         consider both subject knowledge and pedagogy,
·         regularly discuss individual children using annotated outcomes as first-hand evidence,
·         develop an investigative approach to anomalies,
·         use feedback as support for reflection and enhancing personal approaches.

And always cognisant that it’s a human system, subject to human frailty.

​Teaching is a challenging role, from time to time it will get tough, with issues inside or outside school control. Developing teachers is a mixture of challenge and support, by a colleague with the skills to balance both to good effect.  

 

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The art of Assessment

11/5/2018

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Picture; the seventh wave, by Bobbie Bale.
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Assessment is a part of the process…

In the first part of an exploration of the visual world, I looked at the potential for the external world to become the stimulus for a great deal of learning, including developing the broadest possible vocabulary to support dialogue.

If children are not developing a broad vocabulary, then we may have to look at the adult models interacting with them and the experiences that they encounter in their school and home lives. This is not a new issue. When I started my teacher training in 1971, studies from Bristol were being used as baselines for our discussions. Harold Rosen had written about Language Across the Curriculum and Jerome Bruner was talking about the link between experience, language and thought, among many others.

The world is full of things to look at, to describe, to explore, to measure, to speculate about, to evaluate, or to just name, with closer examination showing ever greater detail that fleshes out the general experience. There is no shortage of possibilities; a series of blogs on a sense of place is linked below.

Through learning experiences, the adults act in a variety of roles, more often sharing essential information/knowledge, at other times acting as coach, engaging in developmental dialogue with learners, as individuals, small groups or whole classes. Currently, some commentators are promoting this as the work of Rosenshine, principles of direct instruction, but I see this structure as a common theme throughout my teaching career. It’s a thinking process. The organisation of a teaching space and the tasking of children can vary, but the structured information sharing, challenge and interactions with learners is the same.
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Having imparted knowledge, the teacher role is to seek to firmly embed this into the learner repertoire and to check the security of understanding; modern promotion of this idea, propounded as Cognitive Load Theory. This is likely to happen during challenges or tasks that follow the instruction. Interactions are based on a teacher awareness of the learners, spotting behaviours, listening to discussion or answers to questions that suggest insecurity or perhaps significant security, either response requiring intervention and potential adjustment to the task parameters.

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I’d like to summarise the two elements as 1) knowing your subject(s), with Primary teachers teaching several, and 2) being able to make a judgement where children are, at any point, to support subsequent teaching decisions. I have also to accept that there may be elements of bias in every judgement. This is a potentially significant point, but, with discussion and moderation, elements of bias can be ameliorated, if not eliminated. Interactions are the life-blood of teaching. Tests may occasionally be needed to triangulate reflection.

Subject development can be evidenced through engaging with children of different ages, either directly or through outcome sharing, perhaps through internal moderation, to determine what constitutes quality outcomes at any particular point in learning. Over- and under-expectation will result in distorted challenge, learning opportunities and potentially subsequent decision making. Collecting and collating a portfolio of outcomes is a useful discussion resource. Discussion is a form of collegiate CPD; talking process and outcomes.

We talk of formative and summative assessment; the former being responsive adult behaviour, interacting in real time with learners, the latter is any point where a teacher “takes stock”, informally between lessons and more formally in reporting, orally or in writing to any audience, becoming formative in determining courses of action over a timescale, especially where learning is an issue.

Building evaluation into lessons, through determined intervention supported by available models and enlarged through technology such as a visualiser, enables a teacher to establish clear expectations throughout a lesson and show what achievement can look like. If children are also allowed to talk about their approaches to the tasks in hand, they provide a second level modelling for their peers, and may well use linguistic styles that are understandable to children who may still be struggling.

There has always been a problem of how to remember the learning needs of a class, or classes of children. Regular readers of this blog will know that I advocate fold-out aides-memoire cards that flip out from the edge of an exercise book, enabling the teacher or learner to record items that need to be considered in any piece of work. How to use an exercise book as a personal organiser can be seen here.

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https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/a-sense-of-place-locality
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/a-sense-of-place-1
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/creating-nature-detectives
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/a-sense-of-place-naming-things
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/maths-making-sense-of-the-real-world
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Absorbed

9/5/2018

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Images from a visit to Barbara Hepworth's studio in St Ives
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As an adult, it is possible, if time can be made, to become absorbed by an interesting activity, with significant amounts of time, thought and activity devoted to what to others might seem to be isolated tasks, but which demand your full attention.

Two of my friends have hobbies where they can almost seem to lose themselves in the process of creating the best possible photograph, or the best possible painting. In both cases, the absorption is in decision making, working their way through subtle changes, seeking clarity in image, or the best placing of the next colour stroke. Absorption could, of course imply obsession, but, in both people, their interest in the broader world is what provides the stimulus for their focused behaviours, from which they capture images that express an aspect of them.

In both cases the process is key, leading to several iterations of a possible outcome through a process of evaluation and editing; these might be separate pieces, or might be a reworking of the available image. Both are adding depth, through adding to, or removing layers from, the original.

Over the recent past, in education, process has been pushed into the background, yet, at heart, it equates to the models above, by effectively being a progressive layering of information and opportunity that evolves into a personal iteration at a particular age. If one was to see teachers as artisans, working with a very specific raw material, then every single child is a work in progress, capable of being helped to make alterations to what they know and how they use and apply their knowledge in novel contexts.
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The common factor between the hobbyist photographer and painter and the artisan educator is that they control elements that are seemingly in their control as long as they have mastered techniques. The educator’s raw material, being multi-dimensional, may not always be totally in their control, especially in the early stages, resulting in variance in outcomes. It is, after all, a human system dealing in human frailties.

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Teachers, if one takes Twitter as a minor barometer, is obsessed with getting it right, and, somehow, through the grail of the magic bullet, for each and every child.

A sculptor working with wood will evolve very different approaches to one who works with stone; similar skills, but different application.

The variation in children has always been broad, yet, quite often, every one is treated exactly the same and there is an argument, developed over the recent few years, to “teach to the top” and scaffold for those who need it. In quality artisan hands, this will work in exemplary fashion, but, in less experienced hands it is likely to produce clunky outcomes, as the inexperienced may lack the ability to spot when there’s a need to intervene and adjust to need. You only have to watch ITE trainees in their first attempts at teaching to see this writ large. I’d suggest that the early days NQT will be experiencing similar.

Teaching is absorbing; unpicking children’s thinking and actions can provide many hours of distraction. Focusing on their learning needs, providing appropriate challenge and resources can spill over into weekends and holidays, impacting on outside lives. No wonder that we worry about work-life balance!

My teaching career is littered with abandoned hobbies, sport, music, art, any one of which, at the time, provided a few hours of absorbed behaviour, leaving behind the work details, creating space. The cricket stopped after I “caught” a ball in my face, having slipped for a split second into wondering about a particular child at school; not a good idea when you are only four metres from the batsman! I played my bodhran for a variety of folk groups, including a barn dance band, until the developing demands of an upcoming Ofsted inspection kept taking practice nights away and I had to step out; once replaced, there’s no way back. Painting has occasionally made an appearance, usually in the middle of the summer holiday when there’s been enough time and a place to get materials out.

Equally, though, I wonder about children’s lives, whether in either their home life or their school experience, they learn to become absorbed, to be able to focus on and achieve one thing, at the expense of others, maybe, but doing something of quality that can become the start point for further development and which provides personal pride. Some attend groups outside school or may choose a continuous club provision in school. They may be “spotted” and shepherded into an extension club with more qualified coaches.

School timetables have moved more from blocked time to singular lessons, with a defined time slot, with any flexibilities sometimes compromised by internal organisation that precludes a teacher from offering an extra few minutes for a child to complete a task in class time. It also means that tasks are designed to fit the available time, so can result in reduced challenge.

If process is important, then time to think, to plan, to organise, to start, to continuously evaluate and edit (in-task) has to be available. The alternative is a diet of shrink-wrapped, ready-prepared, short-term experiences, which may or may not link.
I know that time is finite and that schools are challenged to put in place the maths and English curricula, but in reality other subjects “feed” the core, so should demand a place of value. Thinking, along with doing and talking, supports many facets of literacy. Having something of quality to think and talk about enhances English, and maths opportunities are everywhere.

When learners become absorbed in a task and can take some control over, and responsibility for, the outcome, they derive pride and pleasure from the production at any age, especially if they can also see the ways in which they can continue to improve. Teacher quality assurance, response and feedback, has also to be nuanced. It’s easy to put learners off taking part, because they begin to believe that they’re “not good enough”! Belief in one’s ability to continuously improve is a support for progress.
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Process is essential. If we lose it, teachers will have to work twice as hard, to provide scaffolded experience as both process and outcome. They will have to provide both the process and model outcomes. Sometimes, in open activities, children can demonstrate that they have far greater insights than their teachers have previously thought. Task activities can be limiting.

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Processing the Visual World

1/5/2018

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This weekend, we will be supporting an artist friend who’s exhibiting as part of the Emsworth Art Trail, an annual event where over 50 artists open their studios, their homes or just have an exhibition space outside their house. People are invited to visit any whose work might be interesting or inspiring in some way. We have “done” the trail for over ten years.

During the first walk-around we came across Bobby Bale. As it turned out, Bobbie had been an education tutor on a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science that I had taken around twenty-five years earlier. From our first reminiscences, we have kept in touch and become very good friends. For the past few years, we have helped her with setting up and being around for the weekend, to take some of the burden of meeting what can be in excess of a hundred or more people on each day.

As you can imagine, we have interesting conversations, as Bobbie has a very interesting personal story, to go with her understanding of the natural world and of people, through her work with art therapies in different countries.

If you are around Emsworth on Saturday, Sunday or Monday, pop by, say hello and enjoy the art works. Just as a taster… the programme can be seen here… http://emsworthartstrail.org.uk/
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As a scientist, my interest in art began through that, with early drawings of the beetles that I would find and keep, a la Gerald Durrell. A greater interest in the world of art was squashed in my first year at a boy’s Grammar School, where my naïve drawing was judged very harshly, by a teacher whose assessment method was to line everyone up with their work and move individuals up or down the line, followed by a percentage being given. We weren’t given advice or feedback in any form that would move any of us forward. I suppose it was the assessment of you either “had it or you didn’t”.

Fortunately, a move of school and evening classes accompanying my dad, to be taught by the art teacher at the new school, demonstrated that, with some naïve talent and good coaching, I was able to take art GCE as an additional exam and passed.

An interest in the world is, for me, a prerequisite of teaching, as each teacher is, to some degree, helping children to make some sense of the world in which they live, a large part of the stimulus being visual. As children (hopefully) walk to school with their parents, they are (hopefully) noticing features of the locality that become their landmarks and, internalised, supporting their awareness of their place in the world; to become geography. The houses that they pass hold insights into their past through their architecture; history. The natural world and seasonal change can highlight biological aspects.

Each area has it’s own vocabulary that encompasses the essential concepts underpinning the subject. Every area of life can contribute to the child’s developing vocabulary, especially if they are aided by an interested adult. My own interest in the natural world was established through walks in the Welsh valleys with my miner uncle, who would point out plants, birds and animals as we walked.

Awareness starts by registering what is around. Things are just there and can become little more than wallpaper, but they might move, revealing an insect, a bird or a small mammal. Delving into water might reveal frogs, toads newts or fish. The child can start the journey of classification, with subdivisions, as names of birds are learned. Very early scientists would have linked their observations with drawings; some were exceptionally talented at both.

Learning to mark-make is a process, of hand control and an awareness of and careful use of a variety of media. The marks start off as ill-defined, but gradually, for most children, become more controlled, as their hands gain strength, but also allow for light movement and well as heavy marking. Any new medium requires a period of assimilation through what could be called “play”, early accommodation to the flexibility or drying speed of paint, or the difference in elasticity and malleability of plasticine compared with clay.

In 1986, a book arrived on my desk, written by the Hampshire Art Adviser, Lorna Delaney; Guidelines for Art Education. This book provided evidence of the developmental process in children’s art from early years to A level, with examples taken from different stages. A follow-up book arrived in 1992; Further Guidelines for Art Education, this time edited by Mary Schley, the County Inspector for Art. The second book added to the first by looking at assessment as the means by which the process of development could be enhanced. The two books together were useful for both expert artists and also those less confident with the subject.

The whole was premised on an underlying process, with three elements;
·         The conceptual element concerned with ideas, perceptions, feelings, impulses and responses
·         The operational element concerned with the control and use of techniques, materials and media
·         The synthetic element concerned with the perception of the dynamics of visual language, line, tone, colour, texture, movement, structure and form.

Each of the elements has a classificatory language that requires unpicking, sharing, demonstration, discussing, evaluation as well as hands-on opportunity.
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Art enables everyday visuals to be captured, interpreted, enhanced or even distorted, depending on the age and maturity of the child.

I managed to recently get hold of a copy of the Further Guidelines and am currently reflecting on their statements regarding assessment. I’ll blog again when I can distil the ideas.
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The learning in every subject is a process; assessment is often seeking to hit a moving target. It amplifies the need for teachers to understand this developmental process, combined with learner development and outcome anticipation at different points. Constant shared evaluation can embed early the ability to take some responsibility for their own development. Art is an area where children have often caused a surprise, by luck or intention. Maybe the room for “happenstance” is greater?

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    Chris Chivers

    Long career in education, classroom and leadership; always a learner.
    University tutor and education consultant; Teaching and Learning, Inclusion and parent partnership.
    Francophile, gardener, sometime bodhran player.

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