autonomous learners
Headteacher: St Margaret’s is a very big school - it’s got 1350 pupils and it serves Airdrie and the surrounding villages.
As a headteacher, I feel that the period we’ve entered is very, very exciting. There’s been a focus on young people, there’s been a focus on learning… and I think that is great for Scotland, and I think it’s great for the young people.
Assessment is very much linked to the way we want young people to learn, and also teachers to learn. Looking at the learner and how the learner can make progress throughout their period within the school.
Teacher 1: Assessment is very much part of learning, and in drama, pupils from S1 to S6 are constantly being urged to assess their own work and the work of others. Sometimes it’s done in a written form, and always in a practical form - on a daily basis. We’re encouraging pupils to improve their own standards of work by thinking about what they’re doing; how they can improve it, by looking at the challenges they face in a classroom; the problems that are maybe raised with the group work, or the achievements that they make within the group work. And they would be encouraged to always look at, first of all, the positive – what’s good about their work, what targets they’re going to set for themselves and what could be improved. From a very early age, they’re encouraged to realise that because you’re being critical, it’s not a bad thing, and it’s got to be done in a positive way. Hopefully, the more chance they get to assess their own work and the work of other people, their work will improve, and they will have the confidence to actually put their finger on what they will need to do to set their own targets. They’ll be asked what are their particular targets for that day: sometimes they’ve got a long-term target, other days it’s a short-term target, but hopefully, through all these steps that we go through, assessment is part of learning and a very, very important part for their own personal development.
Teacher 1 (to pupil): How has your group work improved today?
Pupil 1 (to teacher): I think that we’ve actually worked better today, and we’ve improved on our actions and we’re using more space. And we’ve planned it out a lot better…
Headteacher: We were looking at how we can encourage young people to play a more active part in assessment for learning; to try and encourage young people to be more positive about what they could achieve; to start the whole process of interaction between the teacher and the pupil. So now they sit down with their teacher and they agree on a self-examination of what their strengths are, and the teacher encourages them to look at areas where they’ve been strong, where they’ve got evidence from assessments and homework’s about their strengths; and also for them to be critical about where they feel they haven’t been making progress. So if they haven’t been making progress, what would their weakness be, and how could they actually overcome that weakness? For the learner, they themselves are involved in the process – it’s not just something they’re receiving. They are involved in the process; they know what the steps are going to be, and how they can actually improve their particular learning.
Teacher 1: I think we should all be encouraged to assess our work - whether you’ve been teaching for thirty years or two years, or whatever, because it makes you think about how you can improve. And that has to have an effect on young people, and that’s why we encourage them from any age to look at what they’re doing. And it makes them more confident; it makes them more aware of how they can improve and assess what they’re actually doing. So it makes a difference when they do it on a practical basis and they talk about it, and they’re encouraged to do it in small groups. They feel secure within the drama room to actually look at their work and to say what they feel, and it certainly makes a big improvement on their written work when it comes to examinations, and I think it should be encouraged in every subject and in every walk of life to assess what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it and what we should be setting out to achieve.
Pupil 1: We’ve achieved what we wanted to… we use the space a bit more; we’re a lot clearer in what we’re saying….
Teacher 1: Drama gives them confidence. It encourages them to work with others: they’ve got to cooperate, they’ve got to develop their listening skills, they’ve got to respond to other people… and putting all of this together and assessing what they’re doing is really making them think that they can achieve - and it’s quite amazing what young people can achieve; how we can bring out our talents. I think everyone should be assessing themselves anyway, whether they’ve been teaching thirty years or one year; two years; whatever. And I think everyone should do it in every subject, because I really think it improves the quality of your work. And it also encourages you to appreciate the work of others, and that’s what this is all about as well - is appreciating, target setting developing… developing as people, and developing in the classroom.