Teach Primary Issue 18.6

What are the expectations of pupils during each lesson and what do you want them to be able to do by the end of an entire learning sequence? Being specific will help you measure achievement and give focus. When organising lessons, think carefully about this assessment focus: what do you want to know and how are you going to find it out? Is it through conversations, observations, a look at outcomes or a mixture of all of these approaches? It’s also important to think about whether you want to assess the whole cohort you’re teaching, or just a specific group of pupils. If it’s the latter, make sure you have pupils on a rotation so that you don’t assess the same children in depth each week. Portrait of the artist To develop a picture of the whole child as an artist, it’s essential to carry out a blend of both formative and summative assessments. Week by week, during art sessions, tune into peer-to-peer conversations and listen out for art talk. Are children discussing ideas, techniques and processes? Are they using subject-specific vocabulary? Having a notebook or feedback journal open on your desk to make notes in can be useful. Tune into the objectives of each session when assessing, but also to the wider notion of the subject and what it means to Know your why. What is the purpose of the assessment you’re planning? What is it going to tell you about a pupil, and how will you use this information to aid progression? Don’t assess for the sake of assessing! Vary your assessment methods – each one is useful in informing you of different aspects of a child’s artistic persona. Using a variety of methods over time helps build a wider picture of pupils as artists. Vary the focus of your assessment, too. Don’t just look at particular skills or the retention of art history facts. Narrowing assessment doesn’t do the subject, or your artists, justice. Each child’s starting point is different; they are all on individual artistic journeys and progress will differ between pupils. Assessment and feedback go hand in hand. There’s no point assessing if you aren’t going to share your findings with the children. Effective feedback should be kind, specific and helpful! Use feedback time as an opportunity to encourage and motivate pupils as artists, focus positively on next steps and moving learning on. When assessing in the moment, and advising pupils on next time, make sure you actually do give them a next time to explore in. Art is subjective: it is an expression of an individual’s thoughts and feelings. Always look at pupils’ artwork through understanding and impartial eyes. www.teachwire.net | 61 work as an artist. Circulate the classroom and join in with conversations, effective questioning can help you deduce the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired during the session and retained from previous ones. It will also highlight any gaps that need addressing or revisiting. It may sound obvious but observing pupils at work tells you so much about their artistic abilities. Remember, in art, the process is just as important as the product when it comes to the development of skills and techniques. Watch how your pupils handle tools and materials, apply what they’ve been taught, and approach exploration and experimentation. Do they learn from others, drawing on what they have seen then adding a personal twist to their artwork? Make notes and step in to support development where appropriate. Try to avoid telling pupils what they should do, but in conversation, make suggestions for next steps and ask pupils if they thought about trying something different. This adds a more positive twist to feedback, celebrates what they have already achieved and puts pupils in charge of their own journeys. Sticky notes can be your best friend when assessing art. Make notes of conversations and observations and add them TH I NGS TO REMEMBER Adele Darlington is an experienced teacher, art lead and primary art consultant. She is also the author of the Bloomsbury title 100 ideas for Primary Teachers: Art . AS S E S SMENT S P E C I A L to your feedback journal or stick them into pupils’ sketchbooks. They won’t deface the children’s work in the same way that writing on the pages would, and you can even purchase tracing paper sticky notes! The scrutiny of a final piece of artwork can tell you a lot about a pupil as an artist, but it’s important to remember it won’t tell you everything. If during a sequence of learning you want pupils to learn to mix different tints and shades of a colour and then they use them in a final piece, then you can be confident they have achieved that objective. However, looking at a final piece in isolation will not tell you if that same pupil can articulate the process they went through to get those colours, nor will it tell you whether they can use subject-specific vocabulary to describe them. This is why, when assessing artwork, it is so important to do so in a variety of ways. A final piece, in collaboration with discussions with its creator, a study of their sketchbook journey and observations of them at work will provide a true all-round picture of them as an artist. TP