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2008 Day 3 findings:

3. Learning objectives and success criteria

Foundation Stage/Year 1

Essex

Learning objectives:

This was well practised. Teachers still find it difficult to separate LOs from contexts and tend to overcomplicate things. Some teachers had changed their marking and were not ticking off the LO on children’s books. They were also giving more verbal feedback and not giving next step targets. Being explicit about LOs and the context has helped children focus better.

Success criteria:

Teachers were very positive about the use of success criteria. They are now stopping much more mid lesson and children are able to peer evaluate more easily with success criteria, coming up with constructive advice. Teachers felt that success criteria should be used across the curriculum.

Cowes

Learning objectives:

Teachers felt their LOs were already separated from the context but are now sharing these more explicitly with children.

Teaching Assistants are now clearer about the LO.

Success criteria:

This is the most powerful tool and is used by children for reference throughout a lesson. Children have been able to generate success criteria and can check against them. Using a third person was seen as useful with young children when using work in the middle of a lesson to improve.

Teachers had shown children good and better pieces of work (sometimes three pieces) to generate criteria. This had worked very well.

Herts

Learning objectives:

The curriculum is skills based in the early years, with adults being clear about LOs. Directed activities only have LOs in Reception.

Success criteria:

Teachers have modelled and good and poor examples of work and children are able to decide the success criteria from this comparison.

Success criteria for this age are very pictorial and action based. Children have found it inspirational to see other older children’s work so that they know where they are going.

Hull

Learning objectives:

Teachers agreed that separating the LO from the context gave adults a clearer focus on learning and evaluation. Teachers used to assume that once children could build a lego house they could build anything. The focus on skills has helped these skills to be transferred.

Success criteria:

Criteria are generated by children, looking at finished products. Nursery teachers have shown children 2 different models and asked what they like about them. It works well to show them something completely wrong for them to put right.

The stages of development for success criteria tended to be writing/drawing then role play, talk partner and sitting on the carpet.

Nantwich

Teachers agree that children have more awareness of the skills they are learning. One teacher shared good and not so good examples of poetry and children came up with 12 success criteria which led to high quality work. Children’s handwriting is now better as a result of handwriting success criteria and writing in general has improved via generic success criteria for good writing. Teachers found that children they expected to reach only certain criteria were often reaching more.

Tameside

Separating the learning objective from its context (or activity) had made children clearer about what was being taught. This has also led to transference of skills.

One teacher described a child using a graphic organiser which had been used in class for life cycles and took it home to write his life story, transferring the skill.

Teachers had shown children previous work at the start of a lesson and developed pupil generated success criteria from these. Children could then use them to self and peer assess and this gave them greater understanding. There is now higher quality work and children have clearer expectations. There has been a great impact on visual learners and children with EAL.

Year 1/2

Essex

Learning objectives:

This is well established but teachers felt they perhaps did not make LOs and contexts explicit enough for children. In some classes children wrote the LO and context on the top of their work (beware time wasting – abbreviate LOs and dates).

Success criteria:

One teacher had made cards of success criteria for children to keep. Children are doing the talking when generating the success criteria, so have more ownership.

The impact of success criteria had been that they encourage children to be very specific about the language they use, children can transfer skills across subjects, the time invested is well worth it and children have a clearer understanding of technical vocabulary.

Cowes

Learning objectives:

Teachers felt that separating the LO from the context was more difficult with maths.

Teachers had looked closely at a key skills curriculum and some had revised their whole planning system.

Success criteria:

Success criteria led to better group work discussion and investigation skills. Criteria have had a big impact on children’s ability to self assess. Modelling incorrect activities had helped children to identify mistakes. Teachers found it hard to find appropriate examples of good and not so good work, so tended to invent their own.

Success criteria are being used across the curriculum. In PE a higher achiever was asked to demonstrate how not to do something compared to a child who demonstrated it correctly.

Herts

Learning objectives:

The sharing and separating LO from the context is well established, although this was harder at first for teachers. Teachers felt it was beneficial to have these written in children’s books. Children mark against the LO and can transfer skills across subjects. They are now more focused with greater understanding.

Success criteria:

Clearer LOs make it easier to generate success criteria. Children use criteria to self assess but lower achievers and children with SEN find it harder to, because of reading difficulties.

One teacher used the visualiser to show different wind up toys and children generated the criteria. During the lesson children stopped to self assess and modify the criteria. They ended up with high quality criteria and products.

The standard of work is higher as a result of success criteria and children are more aware of their next steps.

Hull

Learning objectives:

All aspects of LOs are well established.

Success criteria:

Pupil generated success criteria had been successfully developed by showing 2 pieces of contrasting work. Some children don’t have the language to describe what they see and some children over focus on secretarial skills.

Nantwich

Teachers found Literacy easier as a first step and had used visual or kinaesthetic aids/symbols to represent the success criteria. Every child was enthusiastic and wanting to continue with success criteria in the future. One child with no English is now able to use capital letters and full stops as a result of success criteria. Children are seeing how success criteria can be transferred to other subjects. Some teachers have shown good and not so good examples of work and found these successful for generating success criteria. Children were able to peer mark against the criteria and were able to give each other a target for improvement, which they could then recognise when it had been achieved. Teachers were finding mathematics more problematic, which led to a discussion in the team about the different types of maths success criteria. Types identified:

Specific method (e.g. grid multiplication): success criteria are closed chronological steps
Choose a method for a specific calculation (e.g.365+291): success criteria are a choice of strategies listed
Solve a problem (e.g. How many minutes have you been alive?): success criteria are general problem solving strategies

Teachers all agreed that children now have a clear idea of what they should aspire towards. Modelling excellence at the beginning has contributed to this and enabled lower achievers to see what is expected as a whole.. They work more independently and can correct their own and each other’s work. Children can now give more constructive comments about each other’s work as they are marking against the success criteria.

One school found that children were able to generate success criteria from seeing a good maths calculation and were able to use these with their partner for peer assessment.

Tameside

Teachers agreed they were now focusing on skills and this had become second nature. Children are making links, transferring skills, using learning language.

Success criteria were being generated across many curriculum areas and a good and poor example of work together was successfully used to get pupil generated success criteria. Also the strategy of the teacher deliberately doing the wrong success criteria had worked well. The word ‘success’ alone had had a positive impact on pupil confidence.

Teachers found that giving access to all children to the same success criteria was more successful than differentiated success criteria, which held children back.

Year 3/4

Essex

Learning objectives:

Teachers feel this is well developed now. However, it was felt that creating skills for history and foundation subjects was more difficult. Some schools are using Chris Quigley skill based plans successfully.

Success criteria:

Using a visualiser to show 2 products had been successfully used for pupil generated criteria. Also using mistakes which children sort out had worked well. It was clear that a number of excellent examples need to be shown for art etc. to ensure that children don’t think there is only one version of excellence.

Cowes

Learning objectives:

All teachers felt this was well established in their schools.

Success criteria:

Teachers had found children could generate success criteria in pairs successfully. The visualiser had been used a lot for this purpose and for class marking of ongoing work.

Lollysticks or other random approaches were used to choose a child’s work to be class marked and this had worked well.

Children using success criteria are less likely to ask what to do and are highly focused.

Herts (+special)

Learning objectives:

Teachers felt that the separation of LO from context focuses children and teachers on skills.

Success criteria:

Children with SEN need to be helped to generate the success criteria. They try to include secretarial skills in every case.

The impact has been that all children are able to use success criteria to check and improve their work. Good ways of getting pupil generated criteria were comparing 2 or 3 examples of products, using talk partners and teacher modelling.

The special school had worked on basic success criteria using visual clues specific to individual children. One teacher described a food technology lesson in which she began by showing the children a good and poor French fruit tart made by puppets. The children were able to discuss the skills one puppet would need to make his tart as good as the other.

Hull

Learning objectives:

Clear learning objectives make it easier to assess, both for teacher and child.

Success criteria:

All teachers are now getting children to generate success criteria. They are a constant point of referral, included in interactive displays and used in mid-plenaries to check and improve work. It has now become the expected norm and children have greater ownership of learning. Higher quality work is produced because children know exactly what teachers are looking for.

Nantwich

Children enjoyed creating success criteria when shown a finished product and were able to create their own checklists then with which to assess their own work. Some teachers had created general writing success criteria.

Success criteria had also been used in PE and for behaviour. In one class children had generated success criteria fro an explanation text and had been able to transfer this to geography work and use the success criteria for peer marking. The impact had been that children’s research skills had developed, their learning language had improved and they had been able to demonstrate their learning across subjects.

Tameside

Teachers found this was easier in some subjects and were confused about foundation subjects (is it the history or the letter writing?). It was agreed that both objectives are shared, with the success criteria linked to the skill. Children are getting better at transferring skills and know more clearly what they are learning.

Some teachers had changed their planning to include skills (how are we going to learn it?)

Children had been seen writing criteria on their SAT papers before they started, which showed how embedded they were for Literacy. Teachers found using tow contrasting examples of previous work was successful in getting pupil generated success criteria.

The impact of success criteria is that children are more focused, can assess each other’s work more accurately, they know what they are aiming for and teachers marking is easier.

Year 5/6

Essex

Learning objectives:

These were used effectively at the ends of lessons to see if children knew what they had learnt, and also at the beginning.

Success criteria:

Teachers used success criteria in all subjects, even playtimes. They found it hard to get children to generate them to begin with as children tend to focus on secretarial skills. Once they got it they worked well. One teacher had revisited success criteria with children to see if they needed revision. Children like success criteria and are frustrated when some teachers don’t use them. Sometimes too many can be generated to be useful. Maths was found to be more difficult.

Cowes

Learning objectives:

Children liked knowing the LO and referred to achievement and purpose when asked about this:

‘I like being told what the LO is because then you can try to achieve it.’

‘I like it because we have something to achieve.’

Success criteria:

One teacher had demonstrated measuring an angle using a visualiser while children wrote the success criteria. They then looked at each others and checked the criteria. They watched each other measure and checked against the criteria. Children supported one another and the children worked successfully and enthusiastically.

Children had identified what was good and poor in differing work shown to the whole class, working in pairs, then groups, then compared the two to identify what excellence looked like. Children enjoy creating their own success criteria.

Peer marking was much more meaningful using success criteria.

Herts

Learning objectives:

The sharing and separating of learning objectives is well established.

Success criteria:

Long lists are being streamlined. Using one excellent example to generate success criteria had been very successful with a very positive on lower achievers.

Hull

Learning objectives:

This is well established, with children having explicit information about LOs and contexts.

Success criteria:

Some teachers have differentiated success criteria and found that all children felt they had achieved.

Success criteria had been successful because it had broken down the learning into small tangible steps. Children felt confident and could monitor their own work, learning from each other. One teacher showed children a video of netball skills to model excellence. The children achieved well very quickly as a result.

Nantwich

Teachers agreed that success criteria had been generated by children mainly in Literacy and had been embedded so that children could remember them, use them for peer marking and enable them to be more reflective.

Tameside

Children are finding it easier to achieve the success criteria now that learning objectives are clearer and there are now more references to the learning objective throughout a lesson. Teachers are also clearer.

One teacher had used SAT mark scheme examples to show children comparisons with which to generate success criteria. Success criteria had improved peer assessment and children are now more motivated.

Another teacher learnt what children think is important when pupils chose a well presented piece as better than a less neat but higher quality piece.

Secondary

Essex

Learning objectives:

Clear learning objectives help the teacher, the learning and the plenary to be clearer. Students are able to give more specific feedback on what they have learnt. Teachers are moving towards a more skill based curriculum.

One teacher described how a Year 11 class, given the LO ‘Find ways to protest’ were usually taught this entirely by the teacher. This time the teacher had pairs discuss how to stage a protest, then moving to larger groups leading to all the ideas being generated by the children.

Success criteria:

One teacher described how she asked students in Y8 what they wanted to be able to say at the end of the lesson and the students came up with the skills they needed.

A Y11 class identified success criteria for persuasive writing given an example of excellence (and later a few more) and used these to write their own pieces and for peer marking. All students improved their work and worked well. There was an improvement of one grade for every student.

Cowes

Learning objectives:

One teacher described how separating the LO from the context and using success criteria had impacted on pupil progress. In 2007 pupils were 23 sub levels below average and in 2008 were 27 sub levels above the average.

Success criteria:

Teachers had developed pupil generated success criteria from examples of work. Criteria were used for self and peer assessment. Visualisers had had instant impact when used to compare 2 pieces of work

Herts

Learning objectives:

Well established practice with children now transferring skills across subjects.

Success criteria:

Used very successfully for all children to check and improve their work. Confidence and focus has improved. Children understand much more about what they need to do to reach their goals and talk to each together about this as well.

One child with Downs Syndrome said ‘When I leave school I want to learn to drive a car.’ She was asked by another child, ‘What are your success criteria?’ She replied, ‘Save money, learn to drive, buy a car.’

Hull

Learning objectives:

Teachers had been refocusing their LOs to fit a skill based curriculum and making LOs really specific. It was felt important to have lots of examples at each level to show progression across the skills.

Success criteria:

When shown a Level 4 and a Level 7 piece of work, one child said ‘That’s crap sir!’ Students are generating success criteria successfully and teachers have been asking what they have to do to move from, say, a Level 5 to a Level 6.

Work is of a higher quality, children have better understanding of what they have to do and are eager to be more involved in their learning.


		2008 Day 3 findings: 3. Learning objectives and success criteria Foundation Stage/Year 1 Essex Learning objectives: This was well practised. Teachers still find it difficult to separate LOs from contexts and tend to overcomplicate things. Some teachers had changed their marking and were not ticking off the LO on children’s books. They were also giving more verbal feedback and not giving next step targets. Being explicit about LOs and the context has helped children focus better. Success criteria: Teachers were very positive about the use of success criteria. They are now stopping much more mid lesson and children are able to peer evaluate more easily with success criteria, coming up with constructive advice. Teachers felt that success criteria should be used across the curriculum. Cowes Learning objectives: Teachers felt their LOs were already separated from the context but are now sharing these more explicitly with children. Teaching Assistants are now clearer about the LO. Success criteria: This is the most powerful tool and is used by children for reference throughout a lesson. Children have been able to generate success criteria and can check against them. Using a third person was seen as useful with young children when using work in the middle of a lesson to improve. Teachers had shown children good and better pieces of work (sometimes three pieces) to generate criteria. This had worked very well. Herts Learning objectives: The curriculum is skills based in the early years, with adults being clear about LOs. Directed activities only have LOs in Reception. Success criteria: Teachers have modelled and good and poor examples of work and children are able to decide the success criteria from this comparison. Success criteria for this age are very pictorial and action based. Children have found it inspirational to see other older children’s work so that they know where they are going. Hull Learning objectives: Teachers agreed that separating the LO from the context gave adults a clearer focus on learning and evaluation. Teachers used to assume that once children could build a lego house they could build anything. The focus on skills has helped these skills to be transferred. Success criteria: Criteria are generated by children, looking at finished products. Nursery teachers have shown children 2 different models and asked what they like about them. It works well to show them something completely wrong for them to put right. The stages of development for success criteria tended to be writing/drawing then role play, talk partner and sitting on the carpet. Nantwich Teachers agree that children have more awareness of the skills they are learning. One teacher shared good and not so good examples of poetry and children came up with 12 success criteria which led to high quality work. Children’s handwriting is now better as a result of handwriting success criteria and writing in general has improved via generic success criteria for good writing. Teachers found that children they expected to reach only certain criteria were often reaching more. Tameside Separating the learning objective from its context (or activity) had made children clearer about what was being taught. This has also led to transference of skills. One teacher described a child using a graphic organiser which had been used in class for life cycles and took it home to write his life story, transferring the skill. Teachers had shown children previous work at the start of a lesson and developed pupil generated success criteria from these. Children could then use them to self and peer assess and this gave them greater understanding. There is now higher quality work and children have clearer expectations. There has been a great impact on visual learners and children with EAL. Year 1/2 Essex Learning objectives: This is well established but teachers felt they perhaps did not make LOs and contexts explicit enough for children. In some classes children wrote the LO and context on the top of their work (beware time wasting – abbreviate LOs and dates). Success criteria: One teacher had made cards of success criteria for children to keep. Children are doing the talking when generating the success criteria, so have more ownership. The impact of success criteria had been that they encourage children to be very specific about the language they use, children can transfer skills across subjects, the time invested is well worth it and children have a clearer understanding of technical vocabulary. Cowes Learning objectives: Teachers felt that separating the LO from the context was more difficult with maths. Teachers had looked closely at a key skills curriculum and some had revised their whole planning system. Success criteria: Success criteria led to better group work discussion and investigation skills. Criteria have had a big impact on children’s ability to self assess. Modelling incorrect activities had helped children to identify mistakes. Teachers found it hard to find appropriate examples of good and not so good work, so tended to invent their own. Success criteria are being used across the curriculum. In PE a higher achiever was asked to demonstrate how not to do something compared to a child who demonstrated it correctly. Herts Learning objectives: The sharing and separating LO from the context is well established, although this was harder at first for teachers. Teachers felt it was beneficial to have these written in children’s books. Children mark against the LO and can transfer skills across subjects. They are now more focused with greater understanding. Success criteria: Clearer LOs make it easier to generate success criteria. Children use criteria to self assess but lower achievers and children with SEN find it harder to, because of reading difficulties. One teacher used the visualiser to show different wind up toys and children generated the criteria. During the lesson children stopped to self assess and modify the criteria. They ended up with high quality criteria and products. The standard of work is higher as a result of success criteria and children are more aware of their next steps. Hull Learning objectives: All aspects of LOs are well established. Success criteria: Pupil generated success criteria had been successfully developed by showing 2 pieces of contrasting work. Some children don’t have the language to describe what they see and some children over focus on secretarial skills. Nantwich Teachers found Literacy easier as a first step and had used visual or kinaesthetic aids/symbols to represent the success criteria. Every child was enthusiastic and wanting to continue with success criteria in the future. One child with no English is now able to use capital letters and full stops as a result of success criteria. Children are seeing how success criteria can be transferred to other subjects. Some teachers have shown good and not so good examples of work and found these successful for generating success criteria. Children were able to peer mark against the criteria and were able to give each other a target for improvement, which they could then recognise when it had been achieved. Teachers were finding mathematics more problematic, which led to a discussion in the team about the different types of maths success criteria. Types identified: Specific method (e.g. grid multiplication): success criteria are closed chronological steps Choose a method for a specific calculation (e.g.365+291): success criteria are a choice of strategies listed Solve a problem (e.g. How many minutes have you been alive?): success criteria are general problem solving strategies Teachers all agreed that children now have a clear idea of what they should aspire towards. Modelling excellence at the beginning has contributed to this and enabled lower achievers to see what is expected as a whole.. They work more independently and can correct their own and each other’s work. Children can now give more constructive comments about each other’s work as they are marking against the success criteria. One school found that children were able to generate success criteria from seeing a good maths calculation and were able to use these with their partner for peer assessment. Tameside Teachers agreed they were now focusing on skills and this had become second nature. Children are making links, transferring skills, using learning language. Success criteria were being generated across many curriculum areas and a good and poor example of work together was successfully used to get pupil generated success criteria. Also the strategy of the teacher deliberately doing the wrong success criteria had worked well. The word ‘success’ alone had had a positive impact on pupil confidence. Teachers found that giving access to all children to the same success criteria was more successful than differentiated success criteria, which held children back. Year 3/4 Essex Learning objectives: Teachers feel this is well developed now. However, it was felt that creating skills for history and foundation subjects was more difficult. Some schools are using Chris Quigley skill based plans successfully. Success criteria: The impact of success criteria had been that they encourage children to be very specific about the language they use, children can transfer skills across subjects, the time invested is well worth it and children have a clearer understanding of technical vocabulary. Success criteria had led to better peer and self assessment. Using a visualiser to show 2 products had been successfully used for pupil generated criteria. Also using mistakes which children sort out had worked well. It was clear that a number of excellent examples need to be shown for art etc. to ensure that children don’t think there is only one version of excellence. Cowes Learning objectives: All teachers felt this was well established in their schools. Success criteria: Teachers had found children could generate success criteria in pairs successfully. The visualiser had been used a lot for this purpose and for class marking of ongoing work. Lollysticks or other random approaches were used to choose a child’s work to be class marked and this had worked well. Children using success criteria are less likely to ask what to do and are highly focused. Herts (+special) Learning objectives: Teachers felt that the separation of LO from context focuses children and teachers on skills. Success criteria: Children with SEN need to be helped to generate the success criteria. They try to include secretarial skills in every case. The impact has been that all children are able to use success criteria to check and improve their work. Good ways of getting pupil generated criteria were comparing 2 or 3 examples of products, using talk partners and teacher modelling. The special school had worked on basic success criteria using visual clues specific to individual children. One teacher described a food technology lesson in which she began by showing the children a good and poor French fruit tart made by puppets. The children were able to discuss the skills one puppet would need to make his tart as good as the other. Hull Learning objectives: Clear learning objectives make it easier to assess, both for teacher and child. Success criteria: All teachers are now getting children to generate success criteria. They are a constant point of referral, included in interactive displays and used in mid-plenaries to check and improve work. It has now become the expected norm and children have greater ownership of learning. Higher quality work is produced because children know exactly what teachers are looking for. Nantwich Children enjoyed creating success criteria when shown a finished product and were able to create their own checklists then with which to assess their own work. Some teachers had created general writing success criteria. Success criteria had also been used in PE and for behaviour. In one class children had generated success criteria fro an explanation text and had been able to transfer this to geography work and use the success criteria for peer marking. The impact had been that children’s research skills had developed, their learning language had improved and they had been able to demonstrate their learning across subjects. Tameside Teachers found this was easier in some subjects and were confused about foundation subjects (is it the history or the letter writing?). It was agreed that both objectives are shared, with the success criteria linked to the skill. Children are getting better at transferring skills and know more clearly what they are learning. Some teachers had changed their planning to include skills (how are we going to learn it?) Children had been seen writing criteria on their SAT papers before they started, which showed how embedded they were for Literacy. Teachers found using tow contrasting examples of previous work was successful in getting pupil generated success criteria. The impact of success criteria is that children are more focused, can assess each other’s work more accurately, they know what they are aiming for and teachers marking is easier. Year 5/6 Essex Learning objectives: These were used effectively at the ends of lessons to see if children knew what they had learnt, and also at the beginning. Success criteria: Teachers used success criteria in all subjects, even playtimes. They found it hard to get children to generate them to begin with as children tend to focus on secretarial skills. Once they got it they worked well. One teacher had revisited success criteria with children to see if they needed revision. Children like success criteria and are frustrated when some teachers don’t use them. Sometimes too many can be generated to be useful. Maths was found to be more difficult. Cowes Learning objectives: Children liked knowing the LO and referred to achievement and purpose when asked about this: ‘I like being told what the LO is because then you can try to achieve it.’ ‘I like it because we have something to achieve.’ Success criteria: One teacher had demonstrated measuring an angle using a visualiser while children wrote the success criteria. They then looked at each others and checked the criteria. They watched each other measure and checked against the criteria. Children supported one another and the children worked successfully and enthusiastically. Children had identified what was good and poor in differing work shown to the whole class, working in pairs, then groups, then compared the two to identify what excellence looked like. Children enjoy creating their own success criteria. Peer marking was much more meaningful using success criteria. Herts Learning objectives: The sharing and separating of learning objectives is well established. Success criteria: Long lists are being streamlined. Using one excellent example to generate success criteria had been very successful with a very positive on lower achievers. Hull Learning objectives: This is well established, with children having explicit information about LOs and contexts. Success criteria: Some teachers have differentiated success criteria and found that all children felt they had achieved. Success criteria had been successful because it had broken down the learning into small tangible steps. Children felt confident and could monitor their own work, learning from each other. One teacher showed children a video of netball skills to model excellence. The children achieved well very quickly as a result. Nantwich Teachers agreed that success criteria had been generated by children mainly in Literacy and had been embedded so that children could remember them, use them for peer marking and enable them to be more reflective. Tameside Children are finding it easier to achieve the success criteria now that learning objectives are clearer and there are now more references to the learning objective throughout a lesson. Teachers are also clearer. One teacher had used SAT mark scheme examples to show children comparisons with which to generate success criteria. Success criteria had improved peer assessment and children are now more motivated. Another teacher learnt what children think is important when pupils chose a well presented piece as better than a less neat but higher quality piece. Secondary Essex Learning objectives: Clear learning objectives help the teacher, the learning and the plenary to be clearer. Students are able to give more specific feedback on what they have learnt. Teachers are moving towards a more skill based curriculum. One teacher described how a Year 11 class, given the LO ‘Find ways to protest’ were usually taught this entirely by the teacher. This time the teacher had pairs discuss how to stage a protest, then moving to larger groups leading to all the ideas being generated by the children. Success criteria: One teacher described how she asked students in Y8 what they wanted to be able to say at the end of the lesson and the students came up with the skills they needed. A Y11 class identified success criteria for persuasive writing given an example of excellence (and later a few more) and used these to write their own pieces and for peer marking. All students improved their work and worked well. There was an improvement of one grade for every student. Cowes Learning objectives: One teacher described how separating the LO from the context and using success criteria had impacted on pupil progress. In 2007 pupils were 23 sub levels below average and in 2008 were 27 sub levels above the average. Success criteria: Teachers had developed pupil generated success criteria from examples of work. Criteria were used for self and peer assessment. Visualisers had had instant impact when used to compare 2 pieces of work Herts Learning objectives: Well established practice with children now transferring skills across subjects. Success criteria: Used very successfully for all children to check and improve their work. Confidence and focus has improved. Children understand much more about what they need to do to reach their goals and talk to each together about this as well. One child with Downs Syndrome said ‘When I leave school I want to learn to drive a car.’ She was asked by another child, ‘What are your success criteria?’ She replied, ‘Save money, learn to drive, buy a car.’ Hull Learning objectives: Teachers had been refocusing their LOs to fit a skill based curriculum and making LOs really specific. It was felt important to have lots of examples at each level to show progression across the skills. Success criteria: When shown a Level 4 and a Level 7 piece of work, one child said ‘That’s crap sir!’ Students are generating success criteria successfully and teachers have been asking what they have to do to move from, say, a Level 5 to a Level 6. Work is of a higher quality, children have better understanding of what they have to do and are eager to be more involved in their learning.