This year the focus of these clusters will be English and in particular writing.
They will run between January 27th and February 6th 2015.
The aims are to:

support teachers in making reliable teacher assessments of writing with particular reference to levels 4, 5 and 6

encourage consistency across schools and across phases

provide an opportunity to share expertise and teaching strategies

promote assessment for learning and aid transition.
Sessions will include a standardisation activity using a piece of persuasive writing and materials provided by the advisers leading the cluster. The main focus will be the opportunity to discuss and moderate work for some of your own pupils. To get the maximum benefit from the cluster, it is important that you bring to the session some appropriate evidence of pupils’ attainment.
Please select 2 or 3 pupils whose levels of attainment will be discussed at the moderation cluster. Please choose pupils working at different levels, within the range level 4 to level 6. You may wish to select pupils that you find particularly interesting or difficult to assess, or who are at the boundary between one level and the next.
What to bring
For each of the pupils, please bring a piece of persuasive writing and a number of pieces of writing that reflect the ‘best fit’ for the level which you have awarded.
(If you don’t have an example of a persuasive piece, we will be adding an idea for a task to the grid from the 5 th January)
The other pieces ideally will cover a range of styles of writing, for instance:
full narratives
descriptive passages - openings, endings, characters, setting
writing to inform, argue, explain, review, comment
If writing to analyse is included, it is important that this has been marked for writing (not as a reading response to text).
It would help if the writing has been produced in a variety of situations i.e. not always in timed, controlled conditions. Discussions about the work will be most useful when the teacher attending the moderation has actually planned and delivered the lesson in order to be able to share the learning objective, context and level of support with colleagues.
To make it easier to share the work with colleagues, please bring 2 copies of each piece of work
(i.e. the original plus one photocopy, or 2 photocopies).
You should also bring copies of any records summarising each pupil’s attainment in writing, such as annotated APP grids for the pupils to be discussed, descriptors used to determine levels etc. You may wish to refer to the writing criteria taken from STA/DfE Moderation Grids used during the KS2 Writing Moderation visits (see below).
Materials to facilitate and record your discussions will be provided.
We look forward to working with you.
Please contact the Assessment Team if you have any queries (01438 844767), or check the website: www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/assessment/ks2/moderationclusters.shtml