How schools and local authorities are using NAR
Assessment in Practice
Following the publication of Building the Curriculum 5 - A Framework for Assessment (BtC5) in
January of this year, Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) hosted and delivered a number of BtC5
launch events across Scotland, engaging with large numbers of practitioners at national and local
levels.
With the National Assessment Resource (NAR) launching in later in the year, LTS
worked with more than 170 schools and centres across every local authority to support them in
developing assessment practices in line with BtC5. In April, almost 100 examples were published in NAR
providing all practitioners with examples of emerging approaches to assessment.
These examples were extremely well received by schools utilising them to support CPD, and the
website received over 30,000 visits in its first two months.
In addition to the examples, LTS produced and published a number of further supportive resources including a guidance leaflet on how to use the NAR, a presentation and an annotation
form - to help practitioners make the best use of their assessment in-service days.
Local approaches to assessment
Local authorities across Scotland have welcomed the support provided by LTS, which has allowed
them to package and disseminate information to their education establishments in a way that works
for them. The following examples show how three local authorities – Highland, North Ayrshire and the
Western Isles - have been engaging with and approaching assessment in their area.
1. Highland
Dave McCartney at Highland Council explained how they utilised this support to build their
assessment strategy:
’We tasked a small team of development officers from the council with providing support to education
establishments and Head Teachers in the area. Throughout June, these officers worked very closely
with five Highland schools involved in producing emerging examples for assessment.
‘LTS was a great source of help for the team, all of whom attended one of the BtC5 national events,
making use of the materials provided including a DVD and PowerPoint presentation. They also took
advantage of the emerging examples to assessment on the LTS website.
‘The officers then took this new knowledge and applied it to publish a series of flyers - distributed to all
education establishments - on the implications of BtC5 in preparation for the in-service days.
‘This approach was well received by Head Teachers and the in-service day events enjoyed positive
evaluations.’
The Development Officers were seconded to support and engage the profession with the key
messages of BtC5 and the work of the first phase NAR schools.
To ensure a consistent and planned approach across the Authority, three packs were developed
containing structured activities and cross-sectoral tasks. The tasks in the packs were based on LTS
support materials for BtC 5 and NAR. The aim was to challenge practitioners’ thinking around cluster
approaches to moderation and the process of producing a range of evidence to validate learning.
Fliers were produced to summarise key areas of BtC5 and a set of evaluative questions prompted the
discussion
All Highland materials used can be downloaded from http://www.hvlc.org.uk/ACE/c5inset/index.htm
2. North Ayrshire
In order to streamline their own assessment strategy, the North Ayrshire authority has set up an
assessment group that is chaired by a local Head Teacher. Every cluster and sector is represented in
this group and they are encouraged to share their own experiences and listen to and respond to any
issues raised.
Gary Johnstone, Quality Improvement Manager, North Ayrshire shares his experience of building
assessment strategies:
‘Given the huge interest in the area, we’re grateful for the support that LTS provided and their
assistance in trying to accommodate as many colleagues as possible who expressed an interest in
being involved in NAR developments or BtC5 roadshows.
‘Our authority-wide assessment group has provided invaluable opportunities in the development of
assessment in the area.
‘We are also keen to develop a LAR or ‘local assessment resource’ which will allow colleagues in our
schools to share, on Glow, assessment items they are developing and using with pupils. This
opportunity to share good practice and emerging ideas ought to provide reassurance to our
colleagues and reduce their workload.
‘Whilst our schools are all confident in delivering Curriculum for Excellence, including colleagues in
our secondary schools, we are aware that further work is required in terms of moderation and
assessment.
‘We do not underestimate the challenges ahead but are confident that with the continued widespread
interest and commitment shown, and the support from LTS, we have the beginnings of good
structures and strategies in place to meet these challenges and improve provision for learners across
the authority.’
3. Western Isles - Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
The Western Isles took full advantage of the extra in-service day offered to education establishments
during the summer term to focus on assessment and moderation. The authority used the extra time to
gain a better knowledge of BtC5 and assessment and to work with the outcomes to understand the
purpose of planning with evidence in mind.
Agnes Mackenzie, Quality Improvement Officer at Western Isles Council, explains how using the
NAR examples of approaches to assessment at their in-service days allowed teachers a better
understanding about the way forward in assessment:
‘For the in-service days, our four learning communities all chose different dates, which enabled QI
staff and CDOs to be in attendance and offer assistance. All Head Teachers had input on BtC5 at
their conference in February and were asked to ensure that all staff had knowledge of the document
by the inset day.
‘The model we used was that teachers, from early to fourth level, were allocated groups with
particular outcomes from literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing on which to focus alongside
anonymous examples of assessment.
‘As an authority we now feel that all staff, having had that experience of looking closely at the
outcomes and related assessments, are well placed to continue this process over the coming
session(s). Most staff found the process very helpful and commented particularly positively on having
the opportunity to discuss and moderate with colleagues who teach at different stages to themselves.
This helped them see lines of progression through the levels, and how assessments followed that
progression.
‘We intend to include examples from the NAR at our inset days in August and again in October to
allow staff to compare local examples with those on the NAR.’
Western Isles is using the NAR exemplars and LTS support materials in their modelling of Local
Moderation processes.
With the support of LTS, local authorities have shown over a short period of time how learning,
teaching and assessment, within the context of Curriculum for Excellence, can come together
effectively at a local level. Local authorities have welcomed the support and have utilised and
disseminated many of the resources or information gained from either the BtC5 events or online
resources.
The materials proved to be particularly useful when used as part of the planned, local assessment in
service days, in a way that suited the local needs and priorities.
Schools share how they have used the emerging approaches to assessment to build local
capacity
St Mark’s Primary School, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
Sharon Taylor, a P6 teacher at St Marks’ PS, Hamilton, was directed to the online publication of the
NAR by a local authority newsletter. As a member of the school’s assessment working party she was
keen to compare her approaches to assessing numeracy, in particular, to the emerging practice
described on the site.
At this time of transition she found the site to be a ‘fantastic tool for helping me to develop a shared
understanding of the standards and how to meet the needs of my pupils.’
The examples she looked at were re-assuring but also made her re-think aspects of her practice and
look again in more detail at the numeracy experiences and outcomes.
Working in maths with four ability groups can create problems for valid assessment but the
examples encouraged her to have confidence in using a wider range of different
assessments for her groups. She has also introduced the use of recordings and photographs to
capture evidence of attainment.
Whitecraig Primary School, East Lothian
As Head Teacher at Whitecraig PS, East Lothian, Joanne Taylor was looking forward to the launch of
the assessment examples in the NAR.
She introduced the examples to her staff using the power point presentation from LTS pointing out the health
warnings in relation to the draft nature of the materials. The school was anticipating an HMIE
inspection and had concerns that the impact of the very good active teaching taking place across the
school was difficult to capture in traditional ways.
She found ‘the examples provided very good, creative, ways of gathering evidence and linked well
with their AiFL practice, all of which generated a great deal of productive reflective discussion.’ Staff
were invited to engage with the site as a means of deepening their understanding of the assessment
process and to take advantage of the opportunity to feed back comments.
The exemplars stimulated Joanne to think about how the children at Whitecraig could be encouraged
to identify ways of demonstrating and sharing their learning and attainment with staff. As she says
‘Children are very creative. In a recent topic on medieval history the class themselves decided how to
do just this in innovative ways, including organising a banquet. It’s also made me think about how I
can share their child’s progress with parents using the EduBuzz facility. It may take a little time, but
it’s worth pursuing.’
John Ogilvie High School, South Lanarkshire
Carol McAninch at John Ogilvie HS, South Lanarkshire was keen to steer her department in the right
direction when it came to assessing the Experiences and Outcomes in Maths and Numeracy. She
also had a particular concern in relation to her current S1 class; a group who had achieved only level
B/C in maths by Primary 7, and who were about to embark on a research topic on the impact of
mathematics on inventions.
Although she found the NAR to be a little confusing at first and dominated by examples of
emerging practice from primary schools, she did find an example that interested her. She adapted the
approach of using mixed-age groups to allow the older pupils to coach less-able youngsters,
something she had not thought of trying before. Each group consisted of three S1 pupils and a pupil
from S2 and S3. Everyone in the group was responsible for a particular task. With older pupils helping
to explain language and assist with research problems many of the learning barriers were overcome.
She said that ‘the approach allowed pupils to show what they had learned in different ways. Some
were good at presenting their ideas to the class while others preferred to produce a leaflet. The
quieter pupils in the group found they were able to express themselves through ICT or their creative
skills in compiling the leaflet or PowerPoint presentation. A number of excellent power points were
produced.’
‘I assessed aspects of learning that I had never done before, e.g. presentational and organisational
skills. I often use formative assessment but now I’m having to think of ways to produce evidence of
learning other than from my own observation, e.g. photographs, pupils’ own research notes.’
The assessment framework for this research activity included ideas for developing literacy skills and
social skills. She describes the department as ‘a step further to finding their feet’ in terms of
assessing for CfE and has encouraged her colleagues to try out different assessment approaches as
a way of moving forward this year.
St Margaret’s Academy, West Lothian
Staff in the school looked at the NAR resources. The springboard for this had been
an authority in-service day where staff in schools had worked together in associated school groups to
engage in professional dialogue and reflection arising from exploring materials.
Laura Green, English teacher, said that she felt that teachers ‘definitely want the NAR: we have
always talked about agreeing standards in pupils’ work and we are grateful to actually see pupil work
as this is a good way of having discussions relating to real pupils’. Laura particularly liked the use of
pupils’ work because it was a new way of viewing the kind of practices that staff are already
implementing. ‘It was really valuable and you could almost picture the pupil who produced the work. I
felt that I did not need too much of the context as I could relate the example to pupils in my own
classes’. She said it was reassuring to recognise the range of assessment strategies they were
implementing in their department. What did help was that even by looking at other curricular areas, it
had given Laura ideas on how English teachers could assess, for example, pupils’ understanding of a
non-fiction text, in a different way from the usual comprehension task.
She liked the idea of marking exemplars because it ‘helped us to actually see what the standard could
be as English teachers can have a lot of subjectivity.’ She found the marker’s comments on even the
non-quality marked examples helpful as this gave a real insight into why judgements had been made.
She is looking forward to accessing quality marked exemplars for English. On being asked about
contributing her own work to the NAR in future, Laura did not see this as a problem. ‘We are used to
being evaluated and assessed ourselves, so you would expect this when submitting your work to a
national forum’.
St Margaret’s Academy, West Lothian
Maureen Casey, maths teacher, said that it was helpful to see ideas of the kinds of things that could
be done in a maths classroom. ‘In maths we are going to need to make quite a bit of a shift to use
more types of assessment... it’s not just testing: it is certainly going to be different for me in how I go
about getting evidence of pupils’ progress’.
She felt that even looking at the work that had not been quality marked was really useful too as ‘it
showed the whole picture about how you gather evidence in so many different ways and how you
would include this in you teaching.’ Maureen also said it helped her to recognise that the pupil’s
learning journal of evidence ‘counts’ and is just as important as the teacher gathering evidence.
Maureen also noted that it extended her understanding of how teachers are not just assessing their
subject, but also how well pupils participate in group work, contributing to class discussion, etc. The
department had plans to increase the use of photographic evidence, but the use of video clips in the
materials was very useful. She said that the inclusion of teacher comments to
support what was being exemplified in the video was particularly useful in increasing her own
knowledge and understanding of assessment in the Maths classroom.
Hollybrook School, Glasgow
Hollybrook School used the additional June in-service day to further develop assessment practice.
The Head Teacher and Faculty Heads felt that it was important to revisit the principles of assessment
and for staff to engage in professional dialogue and not get ‘caught up in looking at it as something
totally new but more an area in which we can continue to improve.’ The school was keen to establish
a positive climate for reflection on current assessment practices prior to looking at the NAR
materials. Mary Farrell, Head Teacher, said ‘It is important that assessment is not seen
as separate from learning and teaching so we wanted to build it into our planning. We have been
using the experiences and outcomes and it seemed sensible to set the context for developing
assessment within what we were already planning for our pupils.
We have single staff ‘departments’ and this was a good opportunity to look at the NAR examples of emerging
approaches to assessment together so that we could see how assessment can take many different forms’.
Staff looked at the examples and found it helpful to have an indication of what types of activities can
be vehicles for assessment.
Staff were pleased that they could see how the whole school work they had undertaken in developing
active learning sat very easily within the examples. Initial engagement with the materials made staff
feel that an example ‘almost spoke for itself as there was so much in the text, video clips, examples of
pupils ‘work and the teacher’s comments.
This helped to demonstrated the ‘what and the how’ of assessment to the extent that Mary said ‘I
could just see the pupils in the examples: it was marvellous to be able to know that we could do this
and how we can use it to identify what we are already doing.’ The relationship to learning and
teaching made staff genuinely positive in further developing assessment, seeing it more as building
on good practice such as, for example, employing a range of ways to demonstrate progress, involving
the learner more at an appropriate level, ensuring personalisation and choice. The school plans to
revisit the NAR in the regular CfE working group sessions and as a whole staff.