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TASC
Thinking Actively in a Social Context
© Belle Wallace 2000
Celebrate
your school
and receive the
TASC Accreditation Award!
What is TASC?
TASC means: Thinking Actively in a Social Context. TASC is
a universal, inclusive, and well-proven framework for teaching
problem-solving and thinking skills. Developed by Belle Wallace
(from 1980 ff.), the TASC Framework is in line with what neuroscience tells us about how the brain works, and, consequently,
how all children (and adults!) learn.
The last national survey conducted by Belle (2007/8) showed
that over 10,000 classrooms in the UK were using the TASC
Framework to successfully develop learners’ problem-solving and
thinking skills, and many more schools since then have adopted
the TASC approach. In the national survey, many schools reported
a rise in Standards of Attainment (SATS), and have, consequently,
received praise and positive comments from OfSTED, and
learners, parents and governors!. (Office of Standards in
Education, Children’s Services and Skills, UK)
See the National TASC Website for more details:
www.tascwheel.com
The National TASC Centre at Sheffield invites schools to
celebrate their TASC success!
Many schools in the UK have engaged in TASC Training, and the
newly established National TASC Centre, Sheffield, UK, invites
schools to gain a TASC Accreditation Award that can be displayed
as a School Achievement Award.
In addition the school will be allowed to use the international TASC
logo on all their official documents.
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TASC
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How can schools gain the TASC Accreditation
Award?
There are three entry points:
1. If your school has already received ONE FULL Day of TASC
Training from a Nationally Accredited TASC Trainer, you are
eligible to submit a portfolio of your TASC work and aim for a
certificate accrediting your school with a TASC Silver Award.
2. If your school has received TWO FULL DAYS of TASC Training
from a Nationally Accredited TASC Trainer, you are eligible to
submit a portfolio of your TASC work and aim for a certificate
accrediting your school with a TASC Gold Award.
For both the Silver and Gold TASC Awards, Belle Wallace
will mentor and guide you in the preparation of a successful
portfolio. The TASC way of working supports ‘rethinks’ and
success! The portfolio must be submitted on a CDRom. Some
additional material may be sent in hard copy, but only if this is
necessary.
3. You can organise TASC Training with a Nationally Accredited
TASC Trainer for one or two days for your school or cluster/
family of schools, and you can then proceed to gather your
evidence for your Silver or Gold TASC Accreditation Award
over the subsequent academic year(s).
Details of TASC Training can be found on the websites:
www.tascwheel.com
Following your TASC Training, Belle Wallace will mentor and guide
you in the preparation of your portfolio at either Silver or Gold
level.
As above, the portfolio must be submitted electronically. Some
additional material may be sent in hard copy, but only if this is
necessary.
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Important notes
1. The aim is not to increase teachers’ workload!
The evidence required in the TASC portfolio assumes that
schools are already carrying out the following procedures
as part of their normal TASC school practice. The TASC
Accreditation Award will be an acknowledgement of this
excellent work. So the Silver or Gold TASC Award will mean
that schools can copy on to a CDRom, evidence of their
TASC work taken from their normal planning and classroom
work. Photographs, video clips and relevant reports are
also important and valuable evidence. The portfolio will be
organised in the TASC way!
2. Schools will receive detailed guidelines regarding the
required contents of the portfolio. These guidelines will also
contain templates and examples of activities. Schools can also
request additional templates.
3. Cost of TASC Accreditation
We need to discuss this further, but as we agreed, we can
make an introductory ‘Special Offer’ and we do need to ask for
an advance fee in order to register and receive the guidelines
Do we need to have a two level scale for small and medium/
large schools?
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A: Silver TASC Accreditation Award
This requires evidence gathered from special TASC days
or weeks organised after ONE DAY of TASC Training by a
Nationally Accredited TASC Trainer.
Schools will provide a portfolio of evidence to show that they have
engaged all learners in special days or weeks of TASC problemsolving activities throughout the year, arising from a curriculum
topic or any other school or out-of-school project. So when you
plan ahead throughout the year, you can build in TASC projects as
a matter of course.
To achieve the Silver TASC Accreditation Award, the portfolio
should contain:
Details of school address, email address, background and
catchment area
1. Gather and Organise information
a. Current successes and
awards, and vision for future
school improvement;
b. Details of the challenges
the school faces, ie. perceived
learner, parent and teacher
needs;
c. Number of learners on-roll
and numbers of learners with
particular needs
eg. second language learners, potential ‘highfliers’, underachievers, learners with other
special needs
d. Summary of the details of
the latest Ofsted Inspection
report.
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2. Identify goals
Highlight relevant statements with regard to the school’s
development plan
Insert an action plan grid for a. (months or terms? and headings.)
a. Plans for staff meetings to discuss TASC planning;
informing parents
involving governors
Any other plans?
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b. Outline what the school hopes to achieve with regard to
effective learning behaviour: eg.
an increase in effective learning behaviour
confident problem-solving;
increased attention span and on-task behaviour;
increased learner ownership of their learning;
increased learner independence and motivation.
Any other goals?
Details of evidence
Evidence
(filename if electronic, page
number if hard copy)
Tick
a. Description of the topics chosen
b. Examples of teachers’ planning and learners’ work
c. Evaluation and Assessment details
d. Comments from children, teachers, parents and governors
e. Evidence of teacher and learner working with TASC
(written reports, photographs, video clips, power-points)
f. Evidence of learners working through all the TASC stages of
thinking and problem-solving using the whole TASC Wheel
plus examples using separate and combined stages of the
TASC Wheel.
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5. Comments by teachers, learners, parents and governors
Comments from all the stakeholders, letters, relevant key
points from discussions, video clips are all relevant evidence
for the portfolio.
Insert ‘Learn from Experience’ wedge of the TASC Wheel.
6. Final statement
A final paragraph summarising the impact of using the TASC
Framework on:
a. teacher and learner enthusiasm and motivation;
b. confident problem-solving behaviour;
c. Increased learner on-task behaviour;
d. improvement in learners’ self-confidence;
e. increase of independent learning and achievement.
Additional evidence can be given through short case studies that
show a change in a particular learner’s attitudes and effective
learning.
Any other relevant evidence can be included.
Please go to the TASC website http://www.tascwheel.com/ideas
and you can download a free booklet listing a wide range of TASC
activities that have been carried out in schools.
Please ensure that all photographs have an explanation of
what they actually convey, ie. changed behaviour, excitement in
learning, self-confidence, independent or cooperative learning.
IMPORTANT NOTES
•All queries should be sent to Belle Wallace: belle.wallace@btinternet.com
•Belle will also supply feedback on all portfolios until they are completed.
•Schools must submit a portfolio on a CDRom/DVD plus hard copy if necessary to:
Belle Wallace: TASC Accreditation Award
Meadowlands, Main St, Thorpe, Newark NG23 5PX
•Please keep a copy of your portfolio since your final portfolio will be held at the National TASC
Centre, Sheffield and used for exhibitions.
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B. Gold TASC Accreditation Award
TASC across the curriculum
The aim of the TASC Gold Award is to acknowledge schools that
have embedded the TASC Problem-solving Framework across
the curriculum. Learners should be using the TASC Framework not
only for full TASC projects on special days, but also as and when
they perceive the need in all school lessons.
Important Note: The required evidence to achieve the TASC Gold
Award is an extension of the requirements for the TASC Silver
Award. So you can develop the portfolio for the Silver Award and
then add the additional evidence to achieve the Gold Award.
So if TASC is already well-embedded in your school, you can decide
to aim for the TASC Gold Award straight away!
Once again, the aim is not to impose extra work but to
acknowledge and reward excellent practice.
The evidence required in the TASC portfolio assumes that schools
are already carrying out the following procedures as part of their
normal TASC school practice. The TASC Accreditation Award will
be an acknowledgement of this excellent work. So the Gold TASC
Award will mean that schools can copy on to a CDRom, evidence
of their TASC work taken from their normal planning and
classroom work. Photographs, video clips and relevant reports are
also important and valuable evidence.
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To achieve the Gold TASC Accreditation certificate, the
portfolio should contain all the evidence outlined for the
TASC Silver Award with the following additional evidence.
1. Details with examples of planning showing that the TASC
Framework is incorporated into lessons across the curriculum.
Sections of the TASC Wheel can be used in lessons where
appropriate, eg. Generate and Identify can be used to
introduce a lesson, or, Communicate and Evaluate can take
up a whole lesson. Please incorporate examples of learners’
work.
2. To complete this section of the portfolio, please refer
to the diagram of the Extended TASC Framework.
Teachers are already developing the full range of learners’
basic thinking skills through their usual classwork activities.
This extended diagram shows how all the other elements
of the TASC Framework blend together to make a whole
curriculum framework.
The extended TASC diagram provides a wide range of key
questions, advanced thinking skills, useful learning tools and
strategies, and some free e-learning software that schools can
access to support their TASC work.
Undoubtedly, can add to this extended TASC Framework – and
please feel free to do so!
a. a wide range of Key Questions;
b.
a wide range of Advanced Thinking Skills with the
language appropriate to their stage of development;
c. a wide range of Learning Tools and Strategies.
appropriate ICT programmes
d. (The suggestions provided in the diagram of the extended
TASC Framework are suggestions only.) e.
f.
g.
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h.
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3. Evidence of celebrating all children’s gifts
TASC is inclusive and encourages the celebration of all learners’
gifts and talents across the curriculum. Schools need to provide
evidence of TASC planning and learning activities that allow
learners the opportunity to use their strengths across all the
multiple abilities. Some TASC projects are obviously crosscurricular, so often several of the abilities are combined together.
For example, creating a poster would involve language, visual/
spatial and possibly mechanical/technical abilities; creating an
assembly could include all the abilities! Also the social, emotional
and spiritual abilities can be combined into activities that
essentially fall into personal and social education (PSE).
language (both oral and written);
mathematics (including activities such as games and
puzzles);
science (investigations);
mechanical/technical (building and constructing);
visual/spatial (arts and crafts);
physical/movement (including dance and gymnastics);
auditory/musical (including home-made instruments and
popular music);
social, emotional, spiritual (these can be separate
activities or grouped as personal/social activities.
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4. Evidence of the assessment of the impact of TASC on
learning
This should reflect assessment from the point of view of, for
example:
learners,
school council,
child focus group,
staff meetings.
teachers,
parents,
governors,
performance management,
inspectors.
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5. Final statement for TASC Gold Award
This should include a summary of development with regard to:
1. increased depth and breadth of planning to include TASC
problem-solving and thinking skills;
2. increased learner involvement and ownership of learning, eg.
learners making decisions about the direction of their learning,
learners using the thinking language of TASC;
3. increased differentiation of learning activities;
4. increased on-task behaviour demonstrating the key learning
priorities of the school;
5. reports to parents and governors;
6. if appropriate, relevant highlights from an Ofsted report.
7. learners’ levels of attainment.
IMPORTANT NOTES
• All queries should be sent to Belle Wallace: belle.wallace@btinternet.com
• Belle will also supply feedback on all portfolios until they are completed.
• Schools must submit a portfolio electronically plus hard copy if necessary to:
Belle Wallace: TASC Accreditation Award
Meadowlands, Main St, Thorpe, Newark NG23 5PX
• Please keep a copy of your portfolio since your final portfolio will be held at the National TASC
Centre, Sheffield and used for exhibitions.
Any school that obtains the TASC Gold Award can apply to be credited as a TASC Training
Centre. Further details of this will follow in due course.
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TASC
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Thinking Actively in a Social Context
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