3. Integrated feedback

Foundation Stage/Year 1

Worthing

Reception teachers had focused this strategy on verbal feedback at the end of group work:

Using success criteria, the children looked at one sentence at a time, talking about what had been achieved, then going back to improve what they had written. The small group focus/1 sentence was most effective and helped children understand that the process was there to help them.

One teacher had also used the strategy for tidy-up time, getting them to tidy up, stop, look and discuss then decide what could be done better.

Another teacher has the TA making notes about ideas and suggestions for improvement for individual children’s work as she is observing and these are then used 1-1 with each child afterwards.

The visualiser had been used to look at pupil work and identify successes and VCOP elements.

This way of working develops children’s independence as it is less teacher-led.

Herts

Teachers felt that it was more effective top use this strategy with the whole class or a group rather than involving children in cooperative paired improvements. Teachers had found that the child’s work being displayed on the visualiser often pointed out the mistakes first.

Some teachers are stopping children regularly in a lesson but are not always using the visualiser. They are getting children to help each other and share ideas. It was felt that at this stage children should be encouraged to support each other rather than be making direct improvements – sowing the seeds for later.

Year 1 children who have been shown excellent work are helped in knowing how to make improvements. Where this strategy was time consuming at the beginning, by the end of the year children are automatically checking their own work.

Kettering

Teachers found this strategy was very effective in helping children make improvements, as they can see how to improve as soon as the work goes under the visualiser. Huge improvements had been made during lessons although lower achievers struggles.

Surrey

In the SLD special school children have been having another go at an activity, helped by staff to extend their learning.

Reception teachers are finding it is effective to use this strategy informally with a group and have found it useful to involve parents in identifying positive aspects of children’s work then discussing something that could be worked on.

Doncaster

In Nursery, children are being encouraged to help each other when they experience difficulties, so they are learning that other children can be a source of support and advice, empowering children to be teachers themselves. The impact of this has been increased self-esteem and confidence, knowing they can teach someone else.

Other teachers are stopping children throughout sessions, sharing their work with a visualiser and asking children what they like about it, what is good and what else could they do (rather than what could be even better) against the success criteria.

Children think that whatever they do is fantastic, so a sensitive issue was how to get them to see that work can be improved without denting self esteem.

All these points were seen as the basis of what is then possible by Year 1 and 2, especially emphasising the ethos and supportive relationship.

Year 1/2

Worthing

Practice had been ad hoc at this strategy and had been focused more on errors than positives. IT was felt that it needed to be planned in.

One teacher had all children writing a sentence, completing ‘Antarctica is….’ Using lollysticks, a child was randomly chosen and the sentence shared and improved on. They then worked with a partner to improve each other’s. The impact on learning is that they have become more ware of self-improvement and changing the end product.

It was felt that this strategy should be introduced through small group work/guided activities and with white boards, so that changes can be made by children more readily at first.

Overall, teachers felt that where this had taken place, children were proud of their improved work, their self-esteem was greater and success criteria were further informed.

Herts

Teachers said that children were not keen on being chosen randomly at first but got used to it and now enjoy having their work discussed. In one class the teacher picks one thing to improve in the work and works with the child to model the process to the class. The impact has been a mind-shift: children now don’t see completed work as finished – they know it can be improved.

Kettering

Teachers had used the strategy in different ways, with lollysticks drawn out randomly or paired improvement.

One teacher gave children a basic sentence to improve and then asked children to compare and discuss them in a guided group session.

Children have been marking their own maths work in another class.

Pairs in Literacy have worked together improving using whiteboards.

In DT pairs assessed each other’s work and then improved it (making puppets).

IN science, materials were sorted then partners suggested improvements.

In PE children were asked ‘How could your partner balance better?’

Mime in drama was also improved by partners in the same way.

Lincoln

Teachers said that this strategy had generally been used with a whole class and often using whiteboards, improving sentences etc.

The visualiser had been used, finding positives first (pink) before focusing on negatives.

Some children have been unsure of the process but once they are used to it they enjoy having the class work on their work, especially lower achievers, who like the support.

One teacher described how she ‘rigged’ the first child to be randomly chosen to be someone who would accept the process of improvement, thus modelling that it is a good thing.

The process has developed encouraging behaviour form children to each other. When used in the plenary, the process can refocus the class back to what they were aiming for and really evaluate their efforts.

Surrey

Teachers felt that this strategy had had a great impact on learning and agreed that having a growth mindset was key to its success. Children are now becoming more analytical and mature about their work.

All teachers were now doing mini plenaries with random selection of work and found that most children enjoy being chosen.

In one school the school council asked other children in the school what they liked/disliked about marking. This had led to a complete revamp of the marking system to follow this strategy.

Doncaster

It was agreed that children need lots of experience at this process. Teachers were using larger books and double spacing so that children had room for improvements.

Children had been working together, improving their own work first before helping each other. Mini-plenaries have great impact and children are very focused and work harder if they know someone’s work will be chosen in, say, 10 minutes.

The impact is the refocusing of the lesson objective, improved pace of lesson and being able to deal with misconceptions.

Year 3/4

Worthing

Teachers without a visualiser had been scanning work from previous lessons and then following the success and improvement process. During a lesson, another strategy was to type up the random work there and then. It was important to model the process.

It was important to pick out the good things first, to make children feel comfortable about having their name chosen.

In one school children underline the chosen sentence for improvement and write out the improved version in the line underneath (double spacing).

Children are now coming up with their own ways of showing improvements even though many had struggled at first, believing that their work was perfect the first time.

In one school, teachers are now marking for improvements with talk partners looking at these together and given 10 minutes focus time to respond to the teacher marking.

Herts

Teachers agreed that successful improvement needs training and should be target specific. Its success depends on how well children work as talk partners and needs time to allow the process to develop. One Y4 child said ‘marking our own work helps me see what next step I need to make’.

The strategy takes a long time to establish and identifying areas for improvement needed a lot of work.

Kettering

The strategy had been mainly used in Literacy and some mathematics. Teachers felt that the process had greatly improved the quality and value of editing lessons in Literacy. The process had been used as a mid lesson mini-plenary and as a stand alone lessons and teachers experimented with mixed ability pairs and no-mixed. It works slightly better with non-mixed ability pairs but that depended on the particular task. Pages with spaces had been left for children to make jottings and improvements. It was agreed that focusing on one success criterion was more effective in focusing improvements and that the writer should first read his/her work out to the partner before discussing.

There had been high quality talk between partners and the quality of improvements had been vastly improved. Children and teachers are constantly referring back to success criteria. One teacher used the strategy for instruction writing and every child, even statemented, achieved the learning objective. Working in pairs in this way encourages a culture of support. The pace of lessons has improved and children are keen to have their work randomly chosen.

Lincoln

Time had been spent training children, modelling with whole class and groups, where there was a 3 way conversation between teacher and 2 children.

Self marking is taking place, with children highlighting where they have met the success criteria. They are now aware of the marking process so it will be easier now to move towards peer improvement.

Doncaster

One teacher had used the random name generator to choose a piece of work to put under the visualiser. Children then choose one sentence to improve together. By doing this regularly, children have learnt to improve their work as they go along; with some improving their sentences one by one after they have written them.

Lower achievers really want to show their work and enjoy others helping improve it. When children identify their successes: ‘Well done – you included this’, they feel really proud.

Children at first found it more difficult to say what was good about a piece, preferring to say what could be improved, but have now developed a good understanding of ‘good’.

Some children seem less willing to work in pairs at improving and prefer the whole class effort. The strategy needs a lot of modelling.

One teacher described how one pair was struggling with a verse when writing a poem and came to the teacher. Their work was put on the visualiser and the rest of the class helped to improve it – this gave the pair a range of ideas to choose from, and they still had ownership of their work.

Some teachers felt it was important to ask permission of a child before showing their work.

The impact of the strategy has been higher self esteem and more motivation to write. The quality of writing has improved. Teachers said they were working on getting children to accept that it is OK for other children to ‘borrow’ some of their ideas and that it wasn’t copying. Children are taking ideas from excellent models and making them their own. When children see part of their work in another child’s work now they feel proud. The strategy keeps children on task and excites them. Some teachers felt that this process had the biggest impact on tracking misconceptions.

Surrey

Teachers agreed that their focus has now changed and that there is now more improvement than secretarial features. They stop during lessons to look at writing together.

The strategy needs a lot of training and modelling and practice is important. It works better with short pieces and needs to be specifically focused on one success criterion (e.g. noun phrases).

It works easier if partners are labelled A and B, making time for each person so that they can concentrate properly on each piece of writing. On another lesson the time might be spent entirely on making improvements.

One teacher successfully tried a strategy of pairs writing lines of a poem together then another pair getting this to improve.

The strategy helps lower achievers when working in mixed ability pairs. Children are encouraged and have increased confidence. The strategy has had a big impact on the quality of writing and on children’s motivation. Children want to have their work chose to be shown on the visualiser.

Year 5/6

Worthing

Most of the teachers had tried this strategy and were now using it in different contexts. IT needs building up slowly as many children will panic if a random piece is chosen to go on the visualiser. The strategy needs to become a whole school policy so that children are familiar with the process.

Comments from partners are becoming more complex and are moving away from secretarial skill improvement suggestions.

Children are still expecting teacher feedback from everything they do, so will need a while to be weaned off.

Immediate feedback of this kind in mathematics was seen as particularly effective so that children can address misconceptions as they go along.

It was agreed that learning to improve their work as they go along was building up a life skill.

One teacher said that VCOP boards were very useful, with children immediately placing words on the boards and then adding words from what they have seen or decided to improve.

Lincoln

Teachers agreed that this strategy had had a huge impact on timetabling, planning and whole school policy. Children do one piece of longer writing every two weeks which feeds into APP (Assessing Pupil Progress) as well as providing an opportunity for cooperative improvement. It was more effective for children to have feedback during rather than after.

Where SEN children had a talk partner who was a lower achiever, there needed to be planned support.

The cooperative process needs to be developed, as sometimes children are so keen to work on their own piece that they don’t stay focused on the visualiser.

Teachers need to feel confident that not every piece of work will be marked in depth by the teacher and not to feel guilty.

One child said ‘My partner helped me to improve my work – I love having two brains working on my writing.’

The overall impact has been the need for whole school, policy on feedback and marking to change, which had happened in two of the schools in the group. There is more cooperation between children so interdependent learning is more valued. Children produce work of a higher quality over an extended period of time.

Herts

It was agreed that this strategy requires a change in pupil focus, from spelling and grammar to elements of the success criteria.

In training children, it was important to start with the positives. Sharing these under the visualiser often leads naturally to improvements, rather than asking what could be better.

The cooperative process gets better as children learn how to work with one another, but their improvements are not always accurate.

Use of a 10 minute timer has had a massive impact on children’s focus and output. It was also commented on that girls like the 10 minutes limit better than boys.

It has been effective to have children writing double spaced, to allow space for improvements.

Surrey

Teachers had developed their own systems to apply this strategy (e.g. different colours for improvements, leaving blank pages, every other line etc for improvements, editing in colours etc.), resulting in a move from inclusion of success criteria to more focus on quality.

Some people liked to use Ros Wilson’s VCOP (vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation) as the structure for cooperative improvement.

The growth mindset was a significant factor in how the strategy was approached.

There is now more cooperation between children and a focus on content rather than grammatical features. Children now always want to self-edit even on SATs practice.

The planning has changed in some schools as a result of this strategy, with, for instance, a planned week in which editing takes place.

It was agreed that higher achievers have benefited from the support from a talk partner.

Some teachers felt that this process had helped with marking and that children are now more critical and self aware, reflective and self-evaluative.

Doncaster

Some teachers now have the left or right page in books blank for children’s improvements and jottings.

Children’s social and cooperative skills have been extended. One child said ‘Reading my partners’ work paints pictures in my head.’

The process gives children immediate feedback with supportive examples and models of excellence, which aids children’s understanding.

Children in one school have ‘Magpie’ books in which they write good ideas, words and phrases learnt from other children’s work.

Kettering

It was agreed that the process needs to be developed, as children are not sure of the process to begin with.

Children were very positive in analysing a child’s work under the visualiser. It was felt that lower achievers benefit more than higher achievers.

Some teachers were using the process at the end of finished application work, others using it more frequently within skill building lessons.

Whiteboards have been used very successfully for jottings of improvements for a child’s work on the screen.

It was also useful to demonstrate that even excellent examples can still be improved.

Secondary

Herts

Teachers agreed that pupils now engage in quality conversation about their improvements, taking ownership of this.

One teacher had broken success criteria down using pictures and words with a feedback box to express what pupils think (smiley/not smiley/neutral) while studying their own work.

Worthing

Teachers had had some success with this strategy, with higher achievers giving better suggestions.

The instant improvement with this strategy is powerful, as pupils do it there and then rather than having forgotten if it is reviewed at a later stage.

Students see that they can make small changes which greatly improve their work, which has made students more motivated.

Timetabling issues mean that teachers can’t keep the process as current and ongoing as primary teachers.

There are also still difficulties as secondary teachers have such huge amounts of content to cover, although the process is till worth it. If more teachers used this process, students would be more skilled and it could be picked up more easily and more quickly.