2. Use of product comparisons for quality

Foundation Stage/Year 1

Cowes

Reception children are just beginning to look at products, but last year’s classes had effectively used very good and very poor examples to discuss quality.  The point was made that children need extreme examples and that the focus should be around one criterion (e.g. finger spaces).  Teachers said that resourcing this is getting easier as they build up their collections.

One Y1 teacher gave the children copies of 6 pieces of work from the day before and asked them to discuss them in talk partners.  The children were unaware that it was work from them! Their feedback was amazing and their subsequent work was greatly improved.

Modelling how to do something or how not to do it at the front gets children focused on the process not just the product.  One teacher modelled how ‘Henry’, a fictitious child, has 3 goes at his handwriting, getting better every time.

Herts

Some teachers had used Y2 work to compare with Reception work and found that this gave children confidence to have a go at aiming high.  Children were relieved to know what the teacher was looking for.

Hull

Children enjoyed the impact of the visualiser. Showing 2 pieces of work for this age group had to be of great extremes. The success criteria could be generated by comparing.

Reception children found identifying things which were not very good in a product hard to do but Y1 were developing more ideas about how poor examples could be better. Art examples worked very well with Reception.  

One Y 1 teacher showed the children a poem without adjectives and one with adjectives.  The children could compare and could improve their own work as a result of the comparison.  It was vital that there was a close link with success criteria for this discussion to be worthwhile. 

One teacher showed her class a full skeleton picture and compared it to a stick person drawing, with the context of the book ‘Funny Bones’.  Children’s resulting skeleton pictures had amazing detail.

Nantwich

Teachers said this technique had had a big impact and really clarified what was expected.  Showing excellent and not so good art had generated success criteria easily.  Using good examples of PE and asking how these could still be improved had led to children really enthusiastically extending themselves.

Showing examples of excellent work allowed lower achievers to be more successful than they would have been (e.g. in art children can produce work they can be proud of if they have seen excellence to begin with and gave them ideas).

Using children’s previous work alongside their current work had also been useful in demonstrating progress but also encouraging other children.

Tameside

Teachers had used comparison of products at beginnings of lessons mainly for literacy, art, DT and PE, with the visualiser used for Literacy. Some teachers had scanned work.

Teachers found that the comparison led to children being able to generate success criteria. At this age children tend to say that the neatest piece of work is the best, so it was necessary to focus on specific aspects/success criteria. The gap between the two products need to be very big for this age group.

                                           
Year 1/2

Essex

Children are now able to generate success criteria through the comparison of products.  Having a bank of work is difficult if teachers change year groups.  It was felt that an electronic school bank of products would be a wonderful resource, to be accessed by any teacher.  Teachers found the technique easier for art and literacy as a starting point. It was emphasised that different versions of excellence need to be shown, to avoid children being constrained to one way of achieving excellence.

Teachers with a visualiser said it was a fantastic resource.  Children want to show their work all the time and are more conscious as a result, of their presentation.  Overall, there is less teacher talk and more discussion between talk partners about their work.

Cowes

Teachers had used this technique mostly in Literacy.  Teachers said time was saved as children could quickly come up with success criteria when comparing 2 products.

Two contrasting pieces worked will with layout and formatting in mathematics and showing logical rather than random methods.

Children were very motivated and wanted to achieve and aspire to the excellent version.

Teachers advised that you can find some children’s examples on the web and you can watch PE clips online using ‘Aspire’.

Herts

Children were very motivated by seeing other children’s work – something that they could possibly achieve.  They became very keen to have a go.

Younger children sometimes choose the secretarial features if there is not clear adherence to the success criteria.  It was agreed that there needs to be a big gap between the work compared at this stage.

The overall standard of work improves as a result of this strategy.

Hull

Teachers used visualisers or a scanner to compare work.  Children were captivated and were able to generate success criteria. One teacher found that by writing with her left hand she could ‘fake’ a child’s piece of writing when she could not find an appropriate piece.

Teachers were showing good and excellent work which made children aspire to greater heights.  These models were then included in the working walls display. 

One teacher showed her class good and not so good puppets for instructional writing. Children could create the criteria easily via the comparison.  Higher achievers especially were able to see that they were not just ticking off success criteria, but aiming for excellence.

Nantwich

Comparing products had been used in PE, writing and art, with good results and clear success criteria.  Children are now clearer about how to achieve a higher standard.

Tameside

Teachers had used a visualiser to compare 2 stories successfully, although lower achievers focused on presentation, again emphasising the need to focus on specific criteria.  The overall impact had bee to raise children’s expectations, to enable them to generate success criteria and to set themselves targets.

Year 3/4

Essex

Teachers felt frustrated by the lack of visualisers and the quality of scanners.  There was also a problem for one teacher of getting work from other year groups as she had not yet created her own collection.  Some teachers not involved in the project were reluctant to share poor work even though it would be used anonymously.
Teachers commented that children’s initial response was to focus on the negative aspects of work shown and they need to be trained to look at both positive and negative aspects.  Teachers said it was vital to focus the discussion against a specific criterion.

Using this technique gets children to move on from the attitude that everything they do is good. They become more constructively critical and the quality of work is lifted.  One teacher who had done an art lesson on using pastels with previous classes found that the comparison of products led to much better quality of work than in any previous years.

Cowes

Two schools swapped products between 2 parallel classes successfully.  Teachers agreed that there needed to be a focus on a specific criterion or be focused purely on presentation etc.

One teacher did some work on paragraphs and showed 2 examples for children to generate the criteria from.  They then matched a good example of a paragraph from a big book to the criteria.

This strategy is improving quality and children have a better idea of what to aim for.  All aspects can be covered: auditory, visual and kinesthetic.

Teachers said they realised that they should have been doing this a long time ago and that children have often not been sure what they are aiming for.  They want to build bigger banks of products.  At the moment, teachers tend to generate the poorer product but use a child’s product for the better example.

Herts

The comparison of products had been useful in providing a framework for how to improve their own and each other’s work (if the poorer piece is the subject of improvement to begin with).

The special school teachers found it worked better to compare examples of very visual aspects of the curriculum such as art and food technology.  They have found that having puppets ‘produce’ the work is also effective.

Comparing one child’s work at the beginning of the year with the same child’s work later on was also a good process for encouraging all children to appreciate their progress.

Visualisers were very popular.

Hull

Half of the group had visualisers so others usually enlarged products.  Teachers said that children love to see other children’s work but showing one piece only meant they needed training to know what to look for. Their first responses are always about handwriting etc, unless there is a clear link with a success criterion. 

Teachers agreed that showing children the finished product at the beginning of the lesson led to higher quality work. Drawing out why something is better meant the teacher was learning with the children.  Links were clearly made with the growth mindset, seeing how something can always be better.

Nantwich

Teachers were now steering away from showing work at ends of lessons, which meant that children now had opportunities to improve during lessons.  There was no longer a ‘blank page’ syndrome.

One teacher described how children had assessed a professional leaflet against their criteria and tried to improve it.  Children no longer have to start at the beginning with this approach.

Boys and lower achievers appear to be more willing to work.

Using products at the beginning of an art lesson made teaching easier, generated success criteria and children could see clearly what and how to improve.

One teacher had used Y6 examples as the ‘excellent’ products to show what was possible.

Teachers with visualisers used them effectively for comparison of products.  Children were motivated and enthusiastic and teachers found it easy to show expected standards.

One teacher compared two pieces of writing from parallel classes and children used their success criteria to mark them then acknowledged what they needed to improve in their own work.  Looking at other children’s work means that children are under less pressure.

One teacher described a drama lesson in which good and bad talking was demonstrated which led to children thinking more carefully about their own performance and what made it good.

Tameside

Teachers found it difficult to collect examples of work for this strategy.  They found the easiest technique was to find a poor piece of work then write an excellent one themselves, passing it off as a child’s.  Waiting for scanners and visualisers had made things hard, so photocopying last year’s work etc. had been the only way for some teachers.

Year 5/6

Essex

Teachers said they were gradually building up their own bank of products. The comparisons had been used in DT with pictures, in PE and literacy with increased excellence. Children were able to create success criteria and the quality of their work was higher immediately.  One teacher who had kept topic books from the previous year to use for this purpose found that children were inspired by seeing other children’s work and this raised their expectations of what they could achieve.  Some teachers had found that it was very useful to compare old SAT papers, asking where a child had missed out on a mark, for instance.

Teachers agreed that more than one version of excellence must be shown to avoid children copying that model and it is important to focus on one of the criteria only.  It was only found that stopping in the middle of a lesson to make this comparison can help refocus children and sort out problems.

Overall, children are more empowered and motivated.  One teacher said the classroom is a happier place.

Cowes

Teachers found this strategy had been used very powerfully across the curriculum so that children no longer have to second guess the teacher’s expectations.

Some wondered if children with SEN might be demoralised by seeing comparative products.

It was felt that when introducing this process it was better to start with examples of extreme quality, which stimulated good discussion.  Children like to see other children having made mistakes which they might make themselves.  It then stops them from falling into the same trap.  The more models provided, the better children’s understanding of quality.

Film was found to be very powerful, particularly for lower achievers who can use the visual clues more effectively. 

Teachers had not used visualisers but had prepared pieces in advance in other ways.

Herts

Children are now automatically finding ways to improve their work as a result of analysing other children’s work.  By being able to compare different work they are more easily able to generate success criteria.  It was agreed that generic criteria for secretarial writing should be generated and pasted up to stop children referring to these every time.

Teachers agreed that the quality of children’s work had been greatly improved through sharing successful pieces of work first and generating success criteria from this, successfully used across the curriculum.  Lower achievers especially benefit as they are reassured about expectations.

Hull

By comparing good and not so good, children learnt for a DT lesson how complicated designs don’t work very well. Comparisons were made effectively in PE and writing. Levelled SAT pieces were compared (L3, 4 and 5) as a way of generating success criteria. Art examples of good and bad use of colour, shade and shape were also effective. 

Teachers agreed that this process builds children’s confidence, gives them a starting point and encourages discussion and dialogue.  The mystery of teacher’s expectations is removed. Children’s subsequent work is of a higher standard.

Nantwich

Children generated success criteria for how to play the clarinet.  The teacher then demonstrated how to play it well and badly.  The children then successfully discussed what the teacher did wrong using the success criteria. 

Teachers found that two contrasting examples led to easily generated success criteria and ‘10 times increase’ in quality.

One teacher made a less successful structure and compared it to a strong structure for D and T.   The analysis made children fully aware of joints and tensions before the actual making which meant their work was 3 times more successful than what was usually produced by previous years.

Showing three pre-made tepees constructed of different materials, and pulling them apart led to children changing their planning, giving reasons for their changes.

Tameside

Teachers had used this strategy mainly in Literacy and not all had a visualiser.  However the impact had been that the quality of children’s work started from a higher level.  Children now understand that quality is more important than quantity. Teachers had learnt that comparing products needed to be focused around one criterion at a time.

One teacher asked children to compare the original pieces to their own finished work which had been very successful as a self and peer assessment tool.

One teacher found that getting children to compare 2 different pieces of art had led to a range of subjective opinions. Children gave a greater range of responses than the ones the teacher expects when one particular piece is held up to demonstrate a particular point.

Secondary

Cowes

Teachers were developing their own collections of products but had found pupil work and were generating some pieces themselves. SAT examples had also been used.  Comparison of writing products had been particularly useful because this is a constant feature in students’ work.  Students had produced higher quality work as a result of this process, using the excellent example to improve their own attempts.

Herts

Using this process has helped develop children’s analysing skills.  They can also see how work can always be improved.  Having a negative and a good example makes the generation of success criteria much easier than having just one good piece.  They are also able to comprehend the expectations for a particular standard.

Students are more positive and able to respond to peers when marking.