Glais Primary School

Policy on Written and Oral Feedback

Date of implementation: (Developed Spring & Autumn 2013, revised Spring 2014)

Date due of review: September 2015

Glais Primary School

Written and Oral Feedback Policy

The purpose of feedback is to help the children move on with their learning by acknowledging current results and setting a clear target for future success.Whilst comments will contain praise, the bulk of remarks should be directed towards pupil progress and encouraging self-reflection from the pupil. These comments may be written or oral in nature, depending on the circumstances and age of the child.

This policy sets out how staff at Glais Primary School will ensure that effective feedback is an essential component of our assessment procedures.

Rationale

The Sutton Trust/Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit (2013) found specific, accurate and clear feedback to be one of the most effective strategies for boosting attainment. At Glais Primary,feedback provides an opportunity to effectively aid Assessment of Learning and Assessment for Learning. Effective dialogue between assessor and pupil enables children to judge themselves against their success criteria and understand how to improve their learning and their work. Teacher feedback is obviously an essential element but it is also important for children to learn the skills of self-assessment and begin to feel confident to use peer assessment to share their experiences.At our school we will encourage Assessment for Learning opportunities as an integral part of our policy.

Effective Feedback

At Glais Primary School we believe effective feedback should:-

  • Provide clear direction to children about their strengths and weaknesses in their work.
  • Enable children to be part of the process.
  • Recognise children’s efforts and help them progress
  • Provide encouragement
  • Help children identify what they need to do in order to improve their work and aid future learning.
  • Enable children to talk about their strengths and know their personal targets.
  • Realise individual progress in relation to assessment criteria.
  • Involve all in the school community.
  • Inform teacher planning and children target setting.
  • Children will be given dedicated time to ensure they have addressed their targets. This will generally be on Friday afternoons and may take the form of oral or group sessions with younger pupils.

Feedback procedures

At Glais Primary School a variety of feedback procedures are used to reflect the purpose of the feedback. Sometimes oral feedback will be given and this will be noted, along with the date. Where written feedback is required the following guidelines will be applied as appropriate:

  • Work will be evaluated in the presence of the child with dates and annotation added later where possible.
  • Evaluation will be related to a clear learning objective, which has been shared with the children where possible. Therefore incorrect spellings may not always be corrected.
  • Lesson criteria will be made explicit for children where possible, so they understand what the teacher is looking for.
  • Children will peer evaluate each other’s work or their own work independently or as a class/group activity.
  • ‘A Stars and a Wish’ procedure used to evaluate children’s work. This means that teachers will make a positive comment about the child’s efforts and a comment that can move the child on, as appropriate. Staff may want to use more than one if appropriate.
  • Welsh comments will be used to promote Cwriculum Cymraeg.
  • Key pieces of work may be more extensively evaluated and include reference to the setting for the activity, to Key Skills & requirements, including the LNF as well as date, two stars and a wish etc.
  • Teachers will use a BLUE pen to mark work.
  • Teachers may work with the class/phase to devise symbols to represent specific comments and use these when marking.
  • Significant spelling errors will be underlined with sp or written at the bottom of the page as appropriate. The child will be expected to correct it with help (the number of errors corrected will depend on the child and their self-esteem – not all errors will be corrected), when a child makes an errorthey will put anx on top of the word or at the start of the line. Missing or incorrect capital letters will be circled and missing of forgotten parts of writing will be marked with an * in the margin.Missing words will be marked with a ^.
  • Marker stamps may be used to help teachers to save time writing basic comments about whether the learning objective has been achieved, and to show where a teaching assistant has helped with the work.
  • Errors in mathematics shall be marked with a dot to indicate to children to have another go and to give them the opportunity to correct their own errors.
  • Significant missing or incomplete pieces of work will be recorded
  • The following annotations will be used:

OC: oral comment

POC: Peer oral comment

Indep. : Independent

W/S: with support

P/M : peer marked

S/M : self marked

A/W : assessment work – this is photocopied as a benchmark

G/W : group work

P/W : partner work

W/T : working towards

The following colours can also be used mainly in KS2:

Yellow : spelling

Green : grammar

Pink : punctuation

‘Teachers should be aware of the impact that comments, marks and grades can have on learners’ confidence and enthusiasm and should be as constructive as possible in the feedback that they give. Learners need information and guidance in order to plan the next steps in their learning. Teachers should pinpoint the learner’s strengths and advise them on how to develop them; be clear and constructive about any weaknesses and how they may be addressed and provide opportunities for learners to improve their work.’ (Assessment Reform Group 2002)

Self and Peer Marking

At Glais Primary School children are encouraged to share what and how they learned during reflection/plenary times, especially on Friday. Children, where appropriate,are also responsible for feedback on selected pieces of their own work or that of a peer. This will help them to assess their progress and evaluate their own learning. This will aid children in their understanding of where they are and the next steps they need to take in their learning. The children will either work as a class, group, pairs or individually and will use the lesson objective and criteria as reference for their self/peer evaluation. They will use ‘Two Stars (positive) and a Wish (improvement) if they mark the work and will write these on the bottom of the work or these can be given orally.

The children are encouraged to self-assess how well they have completed some pieces of work using a traffic light system – red, amber and green. This can then be used to discuss progress with peers or staff.

Depending on the age and ability, children may wish to put a wiggly line (like a computer spell checker) to acknowledge that they are uncertain of the correct spelling.

‘Independent learners have the ability to seek out and gain new skills, new knowledge and new understandings. They are able to engage in self-reflection and able to identify the next steps in their learning. Teachers should equip learners with the desire and capacity to take charge of their learning through the skills of self-assessment. (Assessment Reform Group 2002)

Inclusion

All children receive quality literacy and numeracy teaching on a daily basis and activities are differentiated accordingly. Where identified children are considered to require targeted support to enable them to work to age appropriate objectives, a variety of interventions are available. These include the use of IEPs, TA support and support programmes, in particular, individual programmes of ‘Toe by Toe, The Power of 2. Withdrawal for literacy skills and Specific Understanding Language Programme in small age appropriate groups.Evaluation of work in these activities will follow the principles outlined in this policy.

Equal Opportunities

At Glais Primary School we believe that all children regardless of race, gender, ability or age are entitled to equal opportunities. It will be ensured that equal opportunities in SEN are addressed as follows:-

  • Children with SEN have equal access to the whole curriculum through the use of differentiated learning strategies and tasks. These are based on individual needs.
  • Specific teaching strategies are used to maximise access to the curriculum for all children learning EAL.
  • Respect for cultural and linguistic diversity is promoted through the use of resources on multi-cultural themes.
  • Gender equality is promoted by ensuring that both boys and girls have access to all aspects of the whole curriculum.
  • Opportunities to address issues of gender, race etc are provided through appropriate discussions and resources.
  • Evaluation of work in relation to this will follow the principles outlined in this policy.

Curriculum Cymraeg

Children are encouraged, where appropriate, to develop and apply understanding at the cultural, economic, environmental, historical and linguistic characteristics of Wales.

Health and Safety

The physical environment of the school is to be maintained so that it is conducive to the learning process outlined within this policy. A disabled toilet has been installed in the main building recently and there is ramp access to the hall. The school continues to be committed to the installation of further ramps.

Monitoring the policy

This policy will be monitored through regular book trawls in Core Subjects conducted by subject leaders. During book trawls planning will be made available, if required, to indicate where gaps in written work have been left, if books do not contain the information. There may be occasional book trawls for foundation subjects if the subject leader decides. It will also be monitored by the Senior Leadership Team during lesson observations, learning walks, and through regular verbal feedback from staff.

Review

This policy is a working document and is open to regular review by all staff members. Any suggested amendments will be presented to governors for discussion at their first meeting following this review.

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