A time and a place for everything
How and when to use formative,
summative, periodic (and dynamic?)
assessment
Rachel Hawkes
Summative Assessment:
A mark or grade (i.e. a summary)
Formative Assessment:
Feedback that tells you what you have done well
and what you have to do to progress
Periodic Assessment:
Broad picture of achievement, drawing on a wide
range of evidence from classroom and homework
activities.
Dynamic Assessment:
Assessment and instruction are integrated, so that
assessment does not measure past achievement but
movement towards future achievement. i.e. what learners
can do with support. It is both aspirational and
developmental.
Rachel Hawkes
Who is assessment for?
Who
What is the purpose?
Most suitable form of
assessment?
Student
To know what they know, what they need
to know, how to improve
A mixture of levels and
formative comments
preferred
Teacher
To know what learners know (against
identified targets), to inform teaching, to
account for and respond to individual
differences
Summative (for PM!) and KS4
predictions – other best
through formative/periodic
Parent
To know how well their child is progressing
and why , and how s/he can improve
Level/grade provides
comparison BUT why & how
require formative/periodic
HOD
To know how whole classes are performing
against identified targets, and to be able to
account for individual differences between
current and targeted performance
Levels/grades required
Consistency important 
summative BUT explanations
require formative/periodic
SMT
To know how whole cohorts in one subject
area are performing against identified
targets
Not important as long as
levels/grades available
Rachel Hawkes
Assessment in the classroom
Lesson Observation Form Prompts
Evidence of Assessment
Learning: [Do learners know what they have learnt? Do they
play a part in assessing themselves, each other? Are they
involved in setting future learning objectives?]
Teaching: [How does teaching check understanding? Does
teaching respond to assessment of previous class work,
homework, or contributions during the lesson? Is marking
focused, diagnostic and aids progress? Does teaching allow
learners to assess their own and each others’ learning?]
NB Evidence for these judgements may come from
exercise books and mark books (or equivalent)
Rachel Hawkes
All teachers need to know…!
• Their students’ individual strengths, areas for
development
• The nature of progress in each skill across and
within each key stage
Rachel Hawkes
Profile 1
David understands readily and is keen to
communicate. A risk taker, he often launches
in to speaking without having thought through
how the sentence might end up. He is very
spontaneous but because he is quite lazy with
learning verb endings, he half knows a lot of
words, but most sentences will have mistakes
and many will end up ambiguous because of
wrong verb endings.
Rachel Hawkes
Profile 2
Emma has an excellent memory and is really
keen to do well, and also prepared to put in
serious time and commitment to memorising.
She is quite anxious and under confident, but
on top of this, she does not understand
unexpected questions readily and is prone to
answering the question she thinks you might
be asking. In addition, her pronunciation is
not secure and she has difficulty retaining the
sounds of more complex words over time.
Rachel Hawkes
Profile 3
Simon is extremely bright and adapts his
extensive English vocabulary to his foreign
language learning very well. He is secure with
all tenses, using his own conditional perfect in
his last oral assessment! Because he is
ambitious and always wants to say exactly the
right answer, he can sound stilted in oral
examinations. He can get tongue-tied as he is
considering the various different options!
Rachel Hawkes
Profile 4
Vanessa is also very bright. She doesn’t seem at
ease with Spanish and says that she prefers
German. However, recently she has begun to
be much more spontaneous in class, and her
knowledge of grammar is sufficiently well
developed for her to build sentences creatively
and independently. In oral exams she doesn’t
sound as confident as she should be, and there
is a real danger she is underselling herself here,
as her knowledge and application of grammar is
sufficiently well developed for her to be able to
make her own meaningful exchanges.
Rachel Hawkes
David understands readily and is keen to
communicate. A risk taker, he often launches in to
speaking without having thought through how the
sentence might end up. He is very spontaneous but
because he is quite lazy with learning verb endings,
he half knows a lot of words, but most sentences
will have mistakes and many will end up ambiguous
because of wrong verb endings.
Emma has an excellent memory and is really keen
to do well, and also prepared to put in serious time
and commitment to memorising. She is quite
anxious and under confident, but on top of this, she
does not understand unexpected questions readily
and is prone to answering the question she thinks
you might be asking. In addition, her pronunciation
is not secure and she has difficulty retaining the
sounds of more complex words over time.
Simon is extremely bright and adapts his extensive
English vocabulary to his foreign language learning
very well. He is secure with all tenses, using his
own conditional perfect in his last oral assessment!
Because he is ambitious and always wants to say
exactly the right answer, he can sound stilted in oral
examinations. He can get tongue-tied as he is
considering the various different options!
Vanessa is also very bright. She doesn’t seem at ease with
Spanish and says that she prefers German. However,
recently she has begun to be much more spontaneous in
class, and her knowledge of grammar is sufficiently well
developed for her to build sentences creatively and
independently. In oral exams she doesn’t sound as
confident as she should be, and there is a real danger she is
underselling herself here, as her knowledge and application
of grammar is sufficiently well developed for her to be able
to make her own meaningful exchanges.
David
Emma
Simon
Vanessa
Rachel Hawkes
Fitness for purpose: Which ‘next steps’ for which learners?
Organising teaching & learning
• Annotated seating plans
• Before and after
• Carousel lessons (include individual feedback
activities)
• Pair/group work – watch, listen, gather
information  feedback in mini-plenaries
• Strategies for differentiation when finished
• Record one table group (or several pairs) each
lesson  whole class over time
Rachel Hawkes
Whole class oral interaction
• Maximise use of open questions
• Use images to open the context and allow for
a variety of ‘right’ answers
• Thinking time/Pupil talk in pairs first
• ‘no hands up’ policy
• Withhold corrective move – ask several pupils
first
• Longer exchanges with one pupil
• Encourage pupils to respond to others’
answers of others
• Respond to content more than form in
spontaneous interaction
Rachel Hawkes
Periodic Assessment
• QCDA sample material online
• French (levels 3-8), Spanish (levels 4-7),
German (levels 4-7)
• Range of evidence across 4 skills and 3-4 topic
areas
• Teacher assessment commentary
• Learner targets for development
Rachel Hawkes
Pays
Capitale
Langues
On mange
On boit
Climat
Autres détails
Rachel Hawkes
Les pays francophones:
listening activity
Pupil C listened to a recording of
native French speakers talking about
different countries and noted details in
French.
Listening and speaking:
In the listening activity, Pupil C noted
all the main points required from
familiar spoken language in accurate
French. He spoke with his partner,
answering prepared questions about
his chosen country. Although mainly in
the present tense, he has varied his
language and used a range of
vocabulary. He then went on to ask the
questions himself.
Rachel Hawkes
Rachel Hawkes
Métier idéal: listening transcript
The recording was quite fast and pupils heard it twice.
Listening:
In the listening activity, Pupil D was able to understand some familiar
language in this new context as well as some less familiar topic-related
vocabulary. She has noted the details for each job in mostly accurate
French.
Rachel Hawkes
Conclusions
•
•
•
•
‘Meaningful’ vs ‘manageable’
Balance between summative and formative
Integrating teaching and assessment
Improving speaking and writing through
modelling and feedback
• Improving listening and reading through
strategy development
Rachel Hawkes
“Those who do not move do
not notice their chains.”
Rosa Luxemburg
Website: www.rachelhawkes.com
Email: rhawkes@comberton.cambs.sch.k
Rachel Hawkes
Director of Language College / Assistant Principal / AST / SSAT MFL Lead Practitioner
Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire