APP For Teaching Assistants
What is APP?
APP, or Assessing Pupil Progress, is an approach to assessment created by the National Strategies team. There are APP materials for a range of primary and secondary subjects, and they should provide comparable assessment data from primary and secondary sectors so that true progression can be measured. With the abolition of the National Curriculum tests, good reliable data is an essential for all teachers and APP is one approach. Its essential purpose is to support the development of rigorous, accurate teacher assessment.
From the APP guidance for senior leaders:
APP is a structured approach to periodic assessment enabling teachers to:
• make reliable judgements of attainment within National Curriculum levels;
• use diagnostic information about pupils’ strengths and weaknesses to improve planning, teaching and learning;
• track pupils’ progress over a key stage or longer.
Putting APP at the heart of learning for every pupil is now a key priority at school, local authority (LA) and national level. Indeed, many schools are already engaged in this as part of their Assessment for Learning (AfL) work. To support continued development, the National Strategies, in partnership with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), has produced new APP materials in English, mathematics, science and ICT.
Is my school using APP?
APP isn’t statutory and many schools have created their own systems and resources based on the APP materials. There is no standard or must-do way for APP; it’s about using reliable assessment data to help students make progress.
Even if your school or an individual department hasn’t got to grips with APP yet, it doesn’t mean that you can’t use it with the students. In fact once you’ve been using it for a while you could provide valuable advice and information to aid adoption and familiarity within your own school.
What does APP look like?
When you first see the APP materials they can be a little confusing. There are a bewildering number of statements covering a range of levels. Each subject has a number of strands, and each strand is sub-divided into national curriculum levels. This approach allows you to see progression from one level to the next.
How can I use APP?
APP works best when used in an ‘Assessment for Learning’ context OR APP underpins ‘Assessment for Learning’ so that pupils can see the next steps of progression and work out how to get there. APP was not intended to be used purely for summative assessment.
All adults who work in schools want the same thing - to move pupils on and help them make progress. APP provides a useful structure for teaching assistants to use when asking questions in the classroom.
Example of how this could look in Science lessons:
Students are drawing conclusions from their work in science. The level ladder for the activity looks like this
Drawing conclusions (AF 5b)5 / Draw valid conclusions that utilise more than one piece of supporting evidence, including numerical data and line graphs
4 / Identify scientific evidence they have used in drawing conclusions
3 / Describe what they have found out in experiments or investigations, linking cause and effect
2 / Report on what happened in their experiment or investigation
1 / Respond to prompts to say what happened
You know the student you are supporting is working towards level 3. You could ask questions that would lead the student towards level 3 such as “What have you found out? How do we know that?” or “Tell me what you found out? How could you tell someone what you had found out?”
Where can I find the APP materials and more information?
The National Strategies website has all the APP materials. I would suggest that you use the primary materials since these cover the lower levels, although the statements for each level should be the same in primary and secondary materials.
Teaching Assistants supporting Science may wish to use the Nottinghamshire APP descriptors that came from Eastwood School and have broken the APP chart into smaller manageable threads.
National Strategies site: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/
(Follow the links Primary – Assessment – APP – subject for primary materials)
The TES forums (especially the assessment forum) http://www.tes.co.uk/forums.aspx
Who can I ask for advice?
There are a number of people in your school who should be familiar with APP. These include the subject teachers, subject coordinators, SENCOs and assessment coordinators. You may also have contacts in other schools, or you may wish to ask questions anonymously on the TES forums.
You are also free to contact me using the contact form on my website, I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I can.
Teaching Assistant Toolkit
Nottinghamshire Teaching Assistants have access to a range of generic templates that allow TAs to differentiate and adapt materials in a lesson with no preparation. You may wish to download the pack of templates to use with the students that you support. They are available from my resources site.
© Rob Butler 2010
AST @ Beech Hill School, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
Website: http://fiendishlyclever.com