Teach Secondary 13.7

FOCUS ON... IMPROVING FEEDBACK Needto know Newanalysis byThe SuttonTrust has revealed the extent towhich schools in England have become socially segregated.Researchers examined howcloselythe socioeconomic profile of schools’ intakes reflected the demographics of their catchment areas, thus enabling educators and families to compare their school to others locally,via an interactivemap. TheNorth East emerged as the regionwith the country’s highest levels of socioeconomic segregation,with themost uneven spread of pupils receiving free school meals.The NorthWest came in second – contrasting sharplywith London, theWestMidlands and the SouthWest,whichwere found to show,on average, the lowest levels of segregation. Highly segregated areaswere more likelyto be found in urban locations, alongside lower levels of ethnic diversityand a comparativelyhigh number of faith schools.Those LAs overseeing schoolswith high segregation levels also saw largerGCSE attainment gaps between theirmost and least disadvantagedpupils. In light of the findings, the SuttonTrust has called for Pupil Premiumeligibilityto be includedwithin schools’over- subscription criteria, and for Ofsted inspections to include assessments of fair access. Formore information and toview the SuttonTrust’s interactive map,visit tiny.cc/ts137-LL2 74% of secondary school teachers report having had to make alternative arrangements for this year’s GCSE assessments, due to students’ exam anxiety Source:TeacherTappsurveycommissioned bytheAssociationofSchool and CollegeLeaders RossMorrisonMcGill tells us about some of the thinking and reflections that went into his latest book, The Teacher Toolkit Guide to Feedback... What were yourmain objectives when putting the book together? I wanted to tackle the notion thatmarking is the onlyway of providing feedback. Several years ago I published some researchwith University College London – a case study of 13 teachers in seven disadvantaged state schools –where we documented the difference on outcomes when teachers spoke to students and used verbal feedback techniques instead. It was a further step on a long journey I’ve taken, through the experiences ofmarking scrutiny book looks during inspections or at the behest of school leadership, and observing the processes involved in coming upwith templates andmethods for determiningmarking reliability and consistency across a school. For the past eight or so years I’ve been delivering teacher training in schools, and while I’ve seen the dialogue around feedback improve, teachers are still being penalised by the imposition of specificmarkingmethods. They’remethods designed for consistency, and to obviously try and help students progress – but ones often detrimental to teacher wellbeing. Put simply, I and other teachers have spent toomany Sunday nights marking books at the kitchen table, rather than spending time with our families. I want tomove the dialogue aroundmarking and feedback forward. Who are youmainly addressing that message to? Teachers, school leaders? I’ve tried to write a practical book for teachers, but there is an undercurrent in there of ‘ This is an important message for school leaders. ’ I hope inspectors read the book too. School leaders have the greatest impact when it comes to whole school change, somy hope would be that a school leader picks up the book and begins a similar journey themselves – by developing a range of differentmarking and feedback techniques, and building an evidence base so that they can challenge anyone who still maintains that determining a child’s progress always requires first looking through a book. What reliable ways are there of recording and evidencing verbal feedback? If you have teachers who are highly effective and engaging, and have developed scripts to help students act onwhat they’ve produced in class through brilliant verbal feedback techniques, that can be evidenced. Let’s say that historically, a school has scored relatively poorly in attendance and punctuality. Behind the scenes, there’s lots of training in how to give effective verbal feedback. Suddenly, the kids are regularly turning up to school, and are quick to class because they can’t wait to be with their teacher. That’s an outcome in its own right, as well as evidence of the impact that approach to feedback has had. Schools need the confidence to declare that outcomes don’t just revolve around exam scores, and that there are other sources of evidence. This happens already – if your school has a 76%attendance rate, Ofsted will see that as a big problemthat needs fixing. Are there any changes you’d like to see in howECTs are taught about and initially familiarisedwith feedback techniques? Half the challenge withmanaging ECTs is that 15%of them leave after the first year. As a new teacher, especially if you’re young, you’re dealingwithworking in a brand new, full-time job for the first time, living on your own and therefore already needing to learn a variety of self-regulation habits. Ensuring that ECTs learn important professional skills, as well as good classroom habits, is quite a big task as it is – though many schools are nowdoing a bitmore around providing new teachers with a range ofmarking techniques and tool, including verbal feedback scripts. ROSS MORRISON MCGILL HASWORKED AS A D&T TEACHER, MIDDLE LEADER AND DEPUTY HEADTEACHER, AND IS FOUNDER OF THE @TEACHERTOOLKIT DIGITAL MEDIA PLATFORM; THE TEACHER TOOLKIT GUIDE TO FEEDBACK IS AVAILABLE NOW (£12.99, BLOOMSBURY) 78 teachwire.net/secondary