Personal learning planning in Woodside Nursery, Aberdeen City
Focus and context
Assessment FOR and AS Learning
- Our pupils and staff are fully involved in deciding next steps in their learning and identifying who can help.
- Our pupils and staff help to set their own learning goals.
Project Summary
The main issue to be explored by all three schools (Kingswells Primary, Woodside Primary and Scotstown Primary) was the area of personal learning planning and the impact on pupil self-awareness, attitude to learning and attainment.
In Woodside they set about this by targeting the Nursery class. They introduced booklets for each child where targets to be achieved were noted. The targets were identified through discussion with each child and observation of the children during activities. A set of health targets was also established and this was the home /school aspect of the project.
The main aim of the project was to use formative assessment strategies as the foundation for taking forward approaches to PLPs in Nursery.
Success criteria
- To develop pupil awareness of their own and others’ learning.
- To include, wherever possible, parents in the process.
- To formulate a PLP on paper which includes assessment, planning and reporting.
Case study extract
The pupils
- were much more aware of their own learning
- became supportive of other in helping achieve their targets
- shared targets during circle time.
The staff
- felt they were much more focused during observations
- developed a greater knowledge of the whole child
- valued the individual discussions with the children.
The parents
- were positive about the PLP paperwork which was shared with them.
Woodside felt that it had only partially achieved the success criteria. The area of parental involvement was spasmodic and not consistent with all areas. The schools’ social deprivation status was probably a factor in this. The approach was felt to be sustainable but as the local Council has introduced a new electronic assessment/planning and recording format to start in August, the actual paper PLP will not be used as this would duplicate work. However the actual process will be continued within the nursery setting and cascaded into other stages throughout the school.
Woodside felt that the approach overall worked well but there were a few challenging areas. The socio-economic status of the school meant that it was difficult at times to fully engage all parents in the process. It was also a challenge to get all Nursery children to verbalise the target they needed to meet effectively.
The advice they would give to other groups embarking on a similar project would be to broaden the target age for the project so that a more informed response could be structured in the pilot year.
(See also Kingswells Primary and Scotstown Primary case study extracts.)
Points to consider
- How can you support parents in becoming involved in personal learning planning within the school? How can you raise an initial interest and then sustain participation?
- Woodside identified that the format would be changing, but this did not appear to be a problem as they identified the process as being fundamental. Is it vital to have a prescribed recording format when developing personal learning planning?
Contact details
If you would like further information on this case study, please contact the Local Authority Assessment Co-coordinator. You can find contact details for each authority area on our local authority coordinators' contacts page.