Pedagogy, curriculum & assessment

1. Pedagogy, curriculum
& assessment
Jon Curtis-Brignell
Assistant Head: Teaching and Learning

2. Redesigning
Schooling

6. What kind of teaching for what
kind of learning?
1. What are, for your school, your desired
outcomes of education (DOEs)?
Consider:
• the knowledge, abilities, attitudes and values which
you want young people to have acquired by the time
they leave school.

7. What kind of teaching for what
kind of learning?
2. What kinds of learning, in your school,
with your students, will deliver your
DOEs?
Consider:
• What do students need to learn in order for you to
have achieved your DOEs?
• Different kinds of learning processes are needed to
deliver different kinds of outcome.

8. What kind of teaching for what
kind of learning?
3. What kinds of teaching will lead to the
kind of learning that is needed?
Consider:
• Teaching is a way of engaging different kinds of
learning processes in learners’ minds. It depends on
stimulating and engaging the kinds of learning that
will deliver the outcomes you said you valued.

9. What kind of teaching for what
kind of learning?
4. What kind of leadership is required to create
the kinds of teaching and learning which are
desired, and so ensure that students leave
your school with your DOEs?
Consider:
• Only when you have some clarity about the first three
questions can you begin to prioritise the leadership
strategies that will cultivate the necessary kinds of
pedagogy.

10. Pedagogic leadership

11. A culture of and for learning
A school signals its values through different aspects of
its culture. There are the visible, public espousals of
these values through brochures, websites, speeches,
newsletters and other publications.
(Lucas and Claxton, 2013)

15. A culture of and for learning
Most importantly, values are conveyed moment-by-
moment by teachers in classrooms – through their
running commentary; the kinds of activities they
create; the way they lay out the furniture or configure
group work; the kind of language they use and the
example they set.
(Lucas and Claxton, 2013)

16. Curriculum is pedagogy
The failure to realise that curriculum is pedagogy has
been one of the great tragedies of the last quarter-
century in England’s education system…. curriculum
development is an inherently creative process. It is the
process by which teachers take the desired outcomes
from the intended curriculum and convert them into
engaging activities in classrooms.
- Dylan Wiliam, Principled Curriculum Design

17. Curriculum is pedagogy
• We need to create ‘real’ understanding (powerful knowledge)
• Depth before breadth – focus on excellence
• The Trivium: Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric
• Extended enquiries (independence)
• Portfolios of excellence
• Interleaving rather than blocking content
• Embedded formative assessment
• Habits of Mind

18. What is your ‘signature pedagogy’?
Signature pedagogies make a difference. They form
habits of the mind, habits of the hand and habits of
the heart…. they prefigure the culture of professional
work and provide the early socialisation into the
practices and values of a field. Whether in a lecture
hall or a lab, in a design studio or a clinical setting,
the way we teach will shape how professionals
behave…
(Shulman, 2005)

19. English departmental signature pedagogy

20. The backward design of a curriculum
• Define what a
learner/historian/mathematician/artist /etc should
know and be able to do by y11/13, and then work
backwards to devise a programme of study from y7
to achieve that.
This will include:
• ‘Big ideas’ / threshold concepts
• Powerful knowledge (‘knowing that…’)
• Key skills (‘knowing how to…’)

21. Programme of study
Obviously in secondary schools, the content of GCSE
will have a strong influence on the selection of ‘big
ideas’. But schools should be careful not to assume that
GCSE syllabuses embody all the big ideas that will be
important, either for further study, or for life after
school…Focusing only on what is important for
examination success may help the school succeed, but
is likely to be disastrous for current secondary school
students.
- Dylan Wiliam, Principled Assessment Design

22. Threshold concepts / big ideas
Learning should be an adventure, not a journey.
- Martin Robinson
A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal,
opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of
thinking about something. It represents a transformed way
of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something
without which the learner cannot progress. As a
consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there
may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter,
subject landscape, or even world view.
Jan Meyer and Ray Land, “Threshold Concepts and
Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and
Practising within the Disciplines”,

23. Examples of Threshold Concepts

24. Threshold concepts are:
• Integrative: Once learned, they are likely to bring together different parts
of the subject which you hadn’t previously seen as connected.
• Transformative: Once understood, they change the way you see the
subject and yourself.
• Irreversible: They are difficult to unlearn – once you’ve passed through
it’s difficult to see how it was possible not to have understood before.
• Reconstitutive: They may shift your sense of self over time. This is
initially more likely to be noticed by others, usually teachers.
• Troublesome: They are likely to present you with a degree of difficulty
and may sometimes seem incoherent or counter-intuitive.
• Discursive: The student’s ability to use the language associated with that
subject changes as they change. It’s the change from using scientific
keywords in everyday language to being able to fluently communicate in
the academic language of science.

25. Big ideas in English
• The relationship between context and meaning
• The relationship between form, structure and
meaning
• The relationship between language and meaning
• The relationship between grammar and meaning
• The relationship between the writer and the reader
in constructing meaning: the role of interpretation.

26. Threshold concepts from a SoL on Poetry
• What it means to be poetic: the notion of crafting
poetic language.
• The nature and importance of figurative language and
metaphor.
• The kinds and importance of poetic form.
• The impact of structure on meaning; structural
devices such as metre, rhythm, rhyme that are used to
achieve this.
• The role of the reader in constructing meaning:
'informed personal response'.
• Ambiguity of interpretation

27. The English draft model

28. Schemes of Learning - Consistency

29. Don’t forget
• Consider transition (map the gap)
• Inspire and interest students
• Build in testing, assessment and challenge
• Build in real understanding (not teaching by numbers)
• High expectations - you get what you settle for.
Learning is what happens when students are
forced to think hard!

30. Assessment without levels
“What we want is a model of ability based on each child being capable
of anything and us looking progressively, through assessment, at what
ideas a child has understood.”
Tim Oates, Cambridge Assessment
“A culture shift regarding the nature, range and purposes of assessment
needs to take place, in recognition of the new opportunities provided
both by the new curriculum and the removal of levels.”
NCTL Report September 2014
“Assessment should be the servant, not the master, of the learning.”
Dylan Wiliam

31. Why change from levels?
• Can become a “label” that creates a fixed mindset
• Don’t deepen understanding – too general
• Accuracy of levels (especially sub levels) is
unreliable
• They do not always progress smoothly to GCSE
• Successful schools and nations don’t use them
• Wording is often both confusing and limiting
• They no longer exist

32. What do we NEED from a new assessment
system?
• Formative and summative
• Fits with new KS3 National Curriculum
• To measure progress accurately
• To benchmark against KS2 and KS4
• To allow meaningful & understandable parental
reporting

33. What do we WANT from a new assessment system?
• Smooth transition through key stages
• To allow a “growth mindset” focused on effort
and progress
• To provide real stretch and challenge at all levels
• To develop our ‘habits’

34. Progress so far?
• Spoken to our primary feeder schools
• Lots of research in current thinking
• Curriculum working group
• Lots of meetings with curriculum leaders and departments
• Presented to governors
• Consultation with parents
• Consultation with students

35. New proposal
A dual system on :
1. Effort towards Tallis Habits reported 3 times a year
2. Progress in subject specific competencies reported
twice a year
Addresses the feedback points 1 and 2 from the previous slide

36. Habits of Mind
• Effort towards the Habits ‘ideal’ is reported using words
• Students will self-assess their Habits
• Parents will also assess their Habits
• Differences between teacher, student and parent discussed

37. What have we chosen to do?
• Attainment for each year is judged using four thresholds
– Emerging, Developing, Securing and Excelling
(scaffolding towards excellence)
• Expectations change in each year
• Progress is judged at 3 levels –below, good and
outstanding
• More importance given to effort towards each of our
Habits

38. What does this mean?
Good progress

39. How do we define our ‘Thresholds’?
• Define what a learner/historian/mathematician/artist /etc
should know and be able to do by the end of:
• Year 7
• Year 8
• Year 9
How would this look for:
• Learners who are excelling?
• Learners who are secure?
• Those who are developing their learning, but are not yet
secure?
• Emerging learners who are working towards expectations for
their year group?
And how do we scaffold progress in between?

40. Tracking progress and reporting to
parents
In tracking progress and reporting to parents, we will
look at performance relative to baseline threshold:
• Working below baseline threshold – Below expected
progress.
• Working within their baseline threshold – Good
progress.
• Working above their baseline threshold or at the top
of or beyond the Excelling threshold – Outstanding
progress.

41. The draft VMPA model

42. Assessment fails to focus on the skills that are
relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has
been called the “hidden curriculum” as it is an
important driver of students’ study habits. Unless we
rethink our approach to assessment, it will be very
difficult to produce a meaningful change in
education.
--Eric Mazur