Getting to Know my Learners

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 Today a lot of my release has been spent glossing my class, so I can build a far more accurate picture of student achievement. This has prompted a few wonderings regarding formative assessment. 

Since covid, my school moved away from having teachers gloss the entire class, instead we were advised to gloss the students who we felt were on the 'cusp' of a level, or who we find it harder to make an OTJ for. This made sense to me, as I collect pre/post test data via asttle/ other forms of summative assessment. Last year for example, I had around 8 test results to look at from the second half of the year to inform my OTJ. These included some Gloss testing, lots of asttle results and some ARBs type mini test results. 

However, I know I am an outlier in terms of this frequent testing. I wonder if we should be doing more mini formative assessment/ different types of assessment throughout the year to better inform our practice.

This is something I will bring to my inquiry group, but hold onto for now.

In the meantime, my Gloss testing has caused me to change my planning, change my groups around and change the topic for the second half of this term. 

Why? Because I have several students who are around early stage 7 for add/sub and mult/div but all the way back in stage 2-4 for fractions. No really. I have an entire group of students who cannot find a fraction of a set. 

I gave one of my students (11 years old) eight counters and asked her to show find me 1/4 of 8. She arranged the counters as a circle and then 'cut out a piece of the pie'. I've never had a student at this level do something like this before. However, I asked her 8 divided by 4 and she answered instantly. 

Our students often come to us with gaps in fractions and decimals, so I will be interested to see how Clarelle and Hannah's learners get on in this area. I am also hoping to work with two groups of students in years 5/6 to boost the scope of our inquiry and gather more information school wide. 

Are there other areas that students have such stark gaps? How have these gaps remained so large? Lots to think about. 

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