In this excerpt from the NACE Essentials guide “Realising the potential of more able learners in GCSE science”, NACE Associate Ed Walsh outlines six key steps to improve provision and outcomes for those capable of attaining the highest grades in this subject. 

1. Make effective use of assessment data

While many schools devote a significant amount of time to assembling, applying, marking and grading periodic tests, there’s often scope for these to be used more effectively to diagnose areas for improvement. Question-level analysis can help both teachers and learners identify areas of low subject knowledge and skills gaps (tagged against GCSE assessment objectives) – informing feedback, self-assessment and goal-setting, interventions, evaluation of teaching styles and planning for future lessons.

Similarly, analysis can indicate how learners perform in multiple choice questions, shorter written responses and longer responses. Be prepared: if aspirational students are looking to develop in one of these areas, they’ll expect guidance as to how to do so. Woe betide the teacher who can’t provide a learner chasing a good grade either with more examples or effective strategies in areas identified as weaknesses!

2. Challenge learners to use a range of command words

Each awarding organisation uses a particular set of command words in GCSE science exams. Some of these will already be in common parlance in your science lessons, while others may not be used as often. Familiarising learners with the full range of these terms will prepare them to answer a wider range of questions. 

When revising a topic, prompt learners to suggest the type of questions examiners might ask; this will help them revise more effectively. Elicit the nature of each question, encouraging learners to consider the influence of assessment objectives (AOs) and to use a full range of command words.

3. Develop dialogue with the maths department

The quality of dialogue with colleagues in maths and the development of a whole-school numeracy policy has never been so important. (It may also never have been so tricky, bearing in mind the pressure that both maths and science teams can be under.) It can be tempting for a hard-pressed science department to want the maths team to fit in with their running order of topics. The maths curriculum is also driven by a sense of progression, but not necessarily the same one. Skills demanded in KS3 science may in some cases not be taught in maths until KS4.

Rather than reach an impasse, focus on exploring common ground. Set up a joint meeting and look at maths skills involved in sample science questions. Invite colleagues to explore potential strategies, terminology, likely challenges for learners and how they would deal with these. As well as nurturing specific skills, focus on developing learners’ ability to identify effective strategies and sequencing. More able learners aiming for high grades need to develop problem-solving skills as well as a mastery of individual skills.

4. Review the role of practical work and skills

When carrying out required practicals, ensure learners have access to a range of question types, including questions based on AO2 (application of knowledge and understanding) and AO3 (interpretation and evaluation). It is also important to look at the lists of apparatus and techniques skills in the GCSE specification. Questions relating to practical work are often based on these, even if the context isn’t one learners have met in the required practicals. Assess how good learners are at these skills and whether you can give them more opportunities to develop these. These have a strong relationship with skills used at A-level, meaning those progressing to further study will also benefit.

5. Develop the role of extended writing

Candidates will be expected to develop extended responses, especially on higher tier papers. Look at learners’ performance on such questions to see how it compares with other items. It may be useful to encourage learners to consider what structure to use before commencing writing. Model the drafting of an extended response, demonstrating how you select key words, use connectives, structure a response and check against the answer. AQA, for example, is moving towards the use of generic descriptors for types of extended responses.

6. Link ideas from different parts of the specification

As part of the changes to GCSE science specifications, learners are expected to show that they can work and think flexibly, linking ideas from different areas. Use questions that require this, identifying good examples to use in advance. One of the sample questions uses the context of a current balance, including ideas about magnetic fields and levers. Check out the specification and the guidance it gives about key ideas and linkage. As well as scrutinising the detailed content, look at the preamble and follow-up.

Ynysowen Community Primary School is a successful primary school in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. The school is a Digital Pioneer School for the Welsh government and is a self-improving school. Ynysowen achieved its second NACE Challenge Award accreditation in May 2017.

Tom Hills, deputy headteacher and additional learning needs coordinator, gives an overview of the substantial work the school has done in the area of marking and feedback.

For a long time now schools have known that the feedback students receive is a vital component in moving learning forward. Some, like John Hattie, go as far as to say that it is the single most powerful modification we can make with regards to improving achievement, while the Education Endowment Foundation cites an average gain of up to eight months progress.

Couple this with the fact that marking features at or near the top of every survey conducted into teacher workload, and there are potentially huge benefits to all involved – if we get it right. And if we get it right, then we can lift the lid and remove some of the traditional glass ceilings that are in place in education, particularly for MAT learners.

“Non-negotiables” for marking and feedback

Based on this, we took the decision to review our already established good practice at Ynysowen Community Primary School. This led to us forming the following requirements as the basis for all subsequent work in this area.

We insisted that marking and feedback must:

• Be highly valued by the pupils;
• Be informative in terms of next steps;
• Impact upon pupil progress;
• Be highly valued by the staff;
• Be manageable;
• Put the onus on learners taking ownership and responsibility for their improvement and progress.

In order to achieve this, we set out the following non-negotiables.

1. Every time a member of staff puts pen to paper to mark, learners will respond.
2. When marking a body of text, marking will signpost learners to errors to correct via a coded marking system. (Code placed in the margin on the line where the error occurred.)
3. When providing feedback by comment it will, where possible, contain an element of self-regulation, as this develops greater skills in self-evaluation or confidence to engage further on a task. Where this isn't appropriate, comments will focus on the process used in the task, or on the content of the completed work.
4. Dedicated Improvement and Response Time (DIRT) must be used at the start of every lesson.

Impact and ongoing developments

The new coded marking was implemented in conjunction with DIRT and immediately had the desired impact of increasing pupil engagement with marking, and substantially reducing teacher workload. Within two weeks, staff reported learners beginning to use the coded mark system without prompting to self-assess and improve their work – before their teacher could mark it.

Over time, training was given to staff with regards to moving from task- and product-related comments to process and self-regulation. Initial baseline book review showed 65% of comments across KS2 were task- and product-related, 30% were related to process and only 5% self-regulation. After training, this moved to a much more balanced 40%, 35% and 25% respectively. Work is ongoing to further improve this swing.

When asked about marking and feedback, learners respond very positively. They talk with confidence about the purpose of marking and articulate clearly how it helps them move on in their learning; they love DIRT time. All teachers report a huge reduction in marking time.

This project has been the catalyst for more evidence-based reviews of practice. We have undertaken substantial work with regards to questioning and are currently taking some tentative steps in beginning to explore the area of metacognition for our older learners. Marking and feedback will be reviewed next year to look at how best to incorporate the features available in Google for Education (previously Google Apps for Education) – something the school uses extensively.

Making use of Google for Education

Google for Education offers facilities, the likes of which have never been readily available to schools in such a user-friendly way. Learners can use the apps to share their work and allow comments, so peers can suggest changes and leave feedback. This, however, need not be limited to within the classroom or even school – opening up all sorts of possibilities for school-to-school working across the world.

Then there’s Google Forms, which provides a different dimension to peer- and self-assessment. Theoretically learners could create their own form asking for feedback on specific things in their work and invite responses from people across the world.

Google Classroom makes collating learners’ work easy and quick and allows teachers to make and/or grade work and send it back to the pupil who can make alterations and re-submit. With the huge range of extensions and apps available in the Google Marketplace, this feedback could now take the form of saved audio clips – something that will make feedback even more detailed and accurate, with no time cost.

For those who prefer to use a pen to mark, there are now apps that allow the use of a stylus to physically mark pupils’ digital work. This is then converted to a .pdf and stored alongside the original work.

Given that Google for Education is continually updating and adding new features, the feedback functionality stands to get better and better, which can only be a good thing!