brave new world: a whole school approach to life without...

Brave New World: A Whole School Approach to

Life Without Levels

Richard Rooney, Assistant Headteacher

Email: [email protected]

Session Outline

• Curriculum issues: working back from KS4

• Devising subject specific curriculum & assessment maps and flightpaths that inform academic expectations

• Tracking progress:

• Reporting to parents: A chance to re-write the report!

• Reviewing the system

Life Without Levels: Two ways of looking at it

From the onset, for us it was…

• …great opportunity for us to review our KS3 offering and to make the curriculum and assessments more robust and rigorous

• …in turn will hopefully prepare our pupils better for KS4 (and ultimately lead to less intervention at KS4!).

• If we’ve got it right in KS3, it really can be the defining measure of success for our pupils at KS4 – we will build the right foundations to ensure they can succeed!

Research Phase: Sept 15 – Jan 16

• 4 Matrix

• SIMS

• Other schools locally

• Other schools nationally

• Staff research

• Favoured approach pointed to a system that would build necessary knowledge and skills to enable success at GCSE.

• Not just data but meaningful academic building blocks.

Working Backwards: Designing the Curriculum & Assessment Maps January 16 – May 16

• Key Questions for departments: • What does the GCSE Course require?

• What are the skills & knowledge needed to be mastered?

• Then work backwards to plan the KS3 offering: • What content/key concepts will need

to be developed over the 3 years of Key Stage 3 (according to the new GCSE & New National Curriculum)

• How will these be split over the 3 years? (design a curriculum map- overview SOL)

• When will we assess these over the 3 years? (design an assessment map)

Curriculum Map

Autumn Term 1 Module: 1. What is community? Key Concepts & Knowledge: Community: Class, School & Wider Communities

Explore the idea of our new class as a community

Explore the school community

Know and understand how the Church community began

Examine how the Church began with Peter

Know and understand how the Mass allows the Catholic community to unite

Explore how the different parts of the Mass unite the community.

Key Skills:

How to use a Bible

Analysing Bible stories

Selecting information from texts

Autumn Term 2 Module: 2. Who is Jesus? Key Concepts & Knowledge: Jesus: Fully human and fully divine

Identify different beliefs about what Jesus was like

Examine the apostles creed and Gospels to find out about Jesus

Analyse artist’s impressions of Jesus

Know how Jesus interacted with people in his time including his relationship with the Pharisees

Know the different titles used to describe Jesus and their significance

Focus on Jesus as “saviour” Key Skills:

Analysing & Examining Bible stories & religious texts

Selecting information from texts

Interpreting artistic impressions

Evaluating different claims about Jesus

Spring Term 1

Spring Term 2

Summer Term 1

Summer Term 2

Assessment Map: Year 7

Autumn Half Term 1 Autumn Half Term 2

September: Baseline Assessment Christianity Basics: Knowledge of:

Religious Keywords

Christmas & Easter Stories Explaining how beliefs affect the way religious people live. Identifying two differing points of view.

October: Who is God? Timed Test: 45mins Knowledge of:

Keywords

Bible stories Explaining beliefs about:

The trinity

God’s Revelation to mankind Evaluating:

Different aspects of God’s identity

Spring Half Term 1 Spring Half Term 2

Summer Half Term 1 Summer Half Term 2

Consultation with Heads of Department & staff

• Sowed the seeds of flightpaths

• Offered a number of options to discuss with departments • In school templates

• External examples

• Feedback gathered and collated to inform our life without levels offering

Flightpaths! June & July

• Staff discussing in departments then all information collated.

• We wanted a system that could seamlessly track from KS3 to KS4 without referencing GCSE grades for KS3.

• A flightpath system which details expected skills/content mirroring the curriculum maps was the best way to ensure this could happen.

The Decisions: The Flightpaths/Progress Paths

• 3 bands, but with sub categories

• Bands named: • Gold

• Silver

• Bronze

• Subcategories: • Mastering

• Secure

• Developing

• With pupils we use this language to help motivate and show the progression that they are making

• In total 5 steps/stages, so if pupil is step 1 in year 7, they will move up to step 2 in year 8 etc even though they are on the same flightpath.

80% of our students are in the Silver band!

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 EOKS4

Gold Criteria

Criteria

Master Secure Develop


9 8 7

Gold Criteria

Criteria


Silver Criteria

Criteria



6 5 4

Gold Criteria

Criteria


Silver Criteria

Criteria


Bronze Criteria

Criteria



3 2 1

Silver Criteria

Criteria


Bronze Criteria

Criteria


Bronze Criteria

Criteria


Conversion Chart

FFT Target Band AWL INTO 4M OLD NC OLD GCSE

9

Gold

GM - Master 9 -

8 GS - Secure 8 EXC A-A*

7 GD - Developing 7 7 A

6

Silver

SM - Master 6 6 B-A

5 SS - Secure 5 5 C-B

4 SD - Developing 4 4 C

3

Bronze

BM - Master 3 3 D

2 BS - Secure 2 2 E

1 BD - Developing 1 B

Target Setting

• In all possible cases, the FFT20 Target is used for all students. This grade is published for the following subjects:

• Art and Design , Biology , Chemistry , Design and Technology , English Language, English Literature, French, Geography, History, ICT, Mathematics, Music, PE, Physics, Religious Studies, Core Science, Additional Science, Spanish,

• For subjects where a target grade is not available, a mirror subject is allocated to ascertain the correct target grade.

• Bridging the gap in year 7 (until FFT data released)

CATS tests:

Description Mean Cat Score % of students nationally GCSE

Estimate

Very high 127+ (max 141) 4 9

Above average 119-126 7 8

Above average 112-118 12 7

Average 104-111 17 6

Average 97-103 20 5

Average 89-96 17 4

Below Average 82-88 12 3

Below average 74-81 7 2

Very low 73- 4 1

Recording Assessments with SIMS

• The system allows for historic data display for each student and allow for immediate intervention details to be entered when reporting progress

• All underperforming students are immediately highlighted yellow for easy recognition.

• All FFT 20 Targets for Y8-11

• Feeds the reports

Tracking Progress

• 4 assessment points • End of November • End of February (All progress report & Yr9

written report)

• End of April (All progress report & Yr8 written report)

• July (All progress report & Yr7 written report)

• Reports home • 3 ‘progress’ reports • 1 written report

• Students tracking their own progress:

• This was reviewed in March

Communication: Parents & Children

The children:

• Assemblies! Start of year & reinforced throughout the year.

• Continual drip feed in lessons

Parents:

• Parent Information Evening

• School website

• Reporting focus group

Parental Involvement – Report Focus Group

• 1 meeting in Nov before 1st reports distributed.

• Follow up email communications to get feedback and alter reports

Reports

• Chance to reform the reports and to really look at what information we were giving to parents.

• Following on from feedback – reports were altered a lot!

Reviewing the system

Staff Survey

• Conducted in March

• Overwhelmingly positive results • All confident in how flightpath system

works • 95% use for assessments

• Some grumbles – mainly on targets

• “worth waiting to do it properly rather than rush into it like other schools”

Student Survey

• Conducted in March

• Yr8 chosen

• Very positive results in terms of understanding and embedding the system

• 95% understand how they work Similar number aware of flightpath in all subjects

• Interesting to se how flightpaths used • 42% use in lessons • 73% used for assessments

• 91% think it’s useful having the flightpaths in their books

• 97% think it’s useful to have the tracking stickers

The Opportunity

• We could break free from the shackles of NC levels

• We, as masters of our subject areas, could decide what constitutes Gold, Silver & Bronze in our specialisms. And feed this confidently and seamlessly into KS4

• We designed the system!

• Safeguard: FFT POP Tests

brave new world: a whole school approach to life without...

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