Midlothian
Co-constructing success criteria worked well for maths and literacy but was harder elsewhere. One teacher gave muddled up success criteria for children to sort out. Another teacher had should/could/must success criteria. Having these made learning more meaningful and easier. Children were far more engaged in achieving and the success criteria made it easier to refer back throughout. Children had ownership of next steps and targets and they were encouraged to challenge themselves.
One school had a staff session building learning intentions and success criteria and found this hard to do. When the criteria were modelled, especially in samples of writing, children found it clear and explicit.
When I first asked my class to tell me if they knew their next steps in writing they were really unsure. I got more visual writing targets and children were able to choose their own targets to work on. After writing lessons, I chose children at random to show their work at the visualiser and together we discussed their targets and what next steps might be. The impact over 2 months has been that children have a feeling that they are independent learners and in competition with themselves. I asked them what their next steps in writing were after this and all were able to tell me honestly and confidently.
Eilidh Todd – Lasswade Primary
North Wales Team 1
Three teachers had stopped sticking success criteria into children’s books. They now have time to co-construct with the children and they display the criteria in the room.
Co-constructing via good and bad examples created higher standards of work and made the success criteria quick to generate.
One teacher had added the success criteria to Seesaw.
Another teacher has WAGOLL board which children’s work is added to. This is used as a checking strategy – as a go to for writing examples.
When one very well presented piece was modelled which raised standards in children’s presentation.
One teacher took work from a parallel class for co-construction purposes.
Two teachers used pink and green to mark against the success criteria, used also for editing.
Co-constructing success criteria for different genres of writing was sometimes difficult because children haven’t had enough experience to recognise the features. This needs more support.
The context was World Book Day – designing a character using a potato and scraps of material. The learning intention was to plan a design.
I drew a bad design and the TA drew a good design. Talk partners co-constructed the success criteria by asking the children to think of one thing that made the TA’s example better. No hands up but lollysticks for sharing ideas.
After the success criteria were generated I took a photo of the whiteboard and uploaded it to Seesaw with a recording of the success criteria to remind the children who would find reading them difficult.
Children’s designs were of a high standard. They were motivated to create a good design using the co-constructed success criteria.
The children enjoyed all aspects of the task and were engaged throughout.
Tracey Williams – Ysgol Sant Dunawd
Norwich
All teachers had co-constructed success criteria which gave them ownership of them.
All had introduced a must box after looking at good examples together and good and bad examples. Children understand what they need to do to achieve. They know they have to reflect on their learning to improve.
Teachers were not only looking at children’s examples but also adults’ for analysis.