Predictive Grids

Too often, students see the grade that they receive and do not take enough notice into the written feedback that is given during marking. Dylan Wiliam's suggestion of not giving the grade to the students works but I've been wanting the students to engage with the success criteria when it comes to their exams and they really are incredibly motivated by seeing the grades (or even a number).

Something suggested by a colleague (thanks Jane!), which I've started to implement with exam classes, is 'predictive grids'. These are success criteria grids (usually using the exam board language as much as possible) which the students highlight according to what they think they achieved in the piece of work. This can either be done directly after the piece of work is finished or the lesson after which is what I usually prefer to do. When the work is marked, the teacher can then see where specifically the students are not achieving, but also see if the students know if they are not achieving in that particular area.

This means that the students will engage with what they are being credited for in each piece of work. It also means that the teacher can see if the student has really understood what each part of the criteria is requiring them to do rather than the student simply 'not getting it'.

In the picture above, the yellow highlights are the student's estimates and the squared boxes are what they actually achieved. The Y7 student has shown a pretty good understanding of their levels in the APP grid for this piece of work. The one assessment foci which they might not understand properly is WAF5 - varying sentences for clarity, purpose and effect. Their incorrect estimations tell me that they don't fully understand how to achieve the specific success criteria laid out in the APP grid. I'm not too sure how successful APP is for student learning in English but this did help the students engage with what was required of them. I did use this more successfully with GCSE and A-Level exam criteria and the students seemed to enjoy trying to make successful predictions of their own work and levels.