Tag Archives: APP

Why don’t teachers get APP? (Assessing Pupil Progress)

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I read the volume of anti-APP threads on the TES forums, I listen to the comments of my secondary colleagues and I speak to friends who teach in the primary phase.  On top of this I’ve checked out the growing software industry making APP tracking products and I’ve spoken to colleagues who are responsible for moving APP forward.

Yes APP arose from the need for consistent assessment data between schools and more importantly to fix the discrepancy between primary and secondary NC levels (I’ve yet to find a secondary teacher who uses primary science levels as a reliable baseline!).   Yes APP came from the National Strategies team but the bank of APP statements represent a very useful resource for AfL – after all what is the point in having accurate and reliable assessment data and doing nothing with it?

As a leader of APP practice within the authority I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject.  The points below summarise my thinking about APP

What APP is:

  • An assessment system that allows for consistency between teachers, between schools and between key stages
  • An opportunity for AfL linked to meaningful (sort of) criteria
  • Customisable to suit the needs of you, your school and your learners.
  • An opportunity to gather reliable formative assessment data for every learner

What APP isn’t:

  • Statutory – no one can tell you what you MUST do
  • Hours of trawling through students’ work and books
  • Something that need increase our workload
  • A tick-list of what a student has or hasn’t achieved (software companies take note)
  • Just another type of summative assessment
  • Perfect!

I teach in a special school where teacher assessment has been for norm for years.  APP is nothing new to us – we’ve been following a very similar process for years, finding new ways to make assessment work.  I know APP isn’t perfect, but it occurs to me that a lot of teachers seem to be getting into a flap about nothing – APP will be what you make it!

Click on the APP tag to read my other posts about APP

My opinions are based on my experiences of using the Science APP framework.  Whilst I’ve looked at APP materials for other subjects I haven’t used them with students.

Wikid Science KS3 – my reflections on the new Year 8 units

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upd8-wikid-logo[1] Having taught almost three of the new format Wikid year 8 units I had to post an update on my progress with Wikid, and my thoughts about the scheme.

In terms of organisation the new year 8 modules are a huge leap forward.  Lessons are organised into folders by lesson which makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to locating resources and lesson plans.  The content of the lessons is much the same, although they aren’t as heavily dependent on the power points to make them work which is a relief because the novelty of showing presentations soon wore off, both with myself and the pupils! The new modules have supporting video from Teachers.tv (anyone can download these from the teachers.tv website) which the Wikid team have skilfully woven into their topics, helping maintain the theme that runs through each.

The structure of the topics and activities makes it easy to add APP criteria to an activity turning it into an APP assessment with the minimum of effort.  Hot off the press is their mapping grid which helps you see which topics relate to which strand of APP, proving the Wikid team are listening to customer requests).

All is not perfect with the Wikid scheme though, and it still requires some work to use it well, and many schools may not feel confident adopting it lock, stock and barrel. 

To improve the scheme I would like to see Wikid:

  • Reduce the content in the scheme and flag lessons as core lessons and lessons that can be skipped
  • Less detail on lesson plans – they take ages to read!
  • Lesson plans in one place (ideally one document) so you can see the progression from lesson to lesson and how they flow together.
  • More AfL linked to APP built into the scheme – and not the absolutely ghastly Apprend scheme they are flogging like a dead horse.
  • More support for SEN and lower achieving pupils.  Many of the activities are too wordy or too complicated and require extensive adaptation.  Not all pupils achieve level 4 – yet this seems to be the starting point for many of the assessment activities.  (And remember that many of these pupils have poor literacy skills – expecting them to write more than a few words is not an option).
  • Fewer resources to photocopy – and in black and white please.  I haven’t seen a school yet that colour photocopies or prints whole class sets of colour worksheets.
  • Promote the Wiki that the whole scheme is named after and encourage participation by ALL teachers who deliver the course.  At the moment the Wiki is difficult to navigate and is further let down by the lack of participation.
  • Remove the Upd8 forums since Wikid staff never bother to reply to questions in there anymore.  If it’s obsolete, take it down!

Would I recommend Wikid to others? Yes.  In fact I’ve had science teachers come from out of county and within county to see it in action.  Wikid science shows enormous potential, and most students are engaged and achieving well on the course.  Of course the scheme isn’t perfect – but show me a scheme that is!

What’s the best way to average marks over a year? How do you work out yours?

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I’m sure that we all use spreadsheets to collate student data.  Some teachers will collect many pieces of data over a year.  How do you calculate an average mark?

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I took some KS3 APP data (you can’t see it all here) and calculated the average in different ways.  As you can see the method of calculating an average can make a whole level of difference.  The longer the time you are measuring over, the more significant the difference is.

My preferred method is to average the five highest marks.  I aim to collect around 10 pieces of APP data over a year from a variety of activities.  You would expect pupils to make progress over a period of time, with the amount of progress proportional to the time span you measure over.  Are you doing pupils any favours if you take a simple mean average?

I’m not convinced that my method is best, but it allows students to have a few ‘off’ days without bringing down their average.  What method (and over what span of time) do you calculate an average?  What method works best for you and why?