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ASSESSING PUPILS' PROGRESS Continued from page 30

An NUT News newsletter was sent to all schools, emphasising that APP should be voluntary. To complement this, the NUT’s national education conference, held in July, focused on how to prevent APP creating excessive workload.

As a result of the NUT’s guidance and the joint statement, many schools are now either using other forms of assessment that they believe are more manageable, or cherry-picking the National Strategies’ guidance in a way that works for them. For example, APP may be simply used on a sampling basis with small groups of pupils, just two or three times a year.

Feedback from NUT members has indicated the shift by many schools away from believing that APP is a workload-intensive imposition.

One teacher commented: “The recent QCA guidelines and NUT advice have been excellent in helping us decide what we keep and what we reject – and we all know it is voluntary.”

One lesson from the controversy over APP is that, for too long, schools have operated in a grey area, with the government turning its expectations into a quasi-statutory requirement. Determined NUT resistance to this approach has, in many cases, redressed the balance in favour of trusting teachers.

The NUT is absolutely clear that decisions about how and when to use APP must rest with staff, after consultation within the school. Members who come under pressure to introduce forms of APP that contradict their professional judgement and create excessive workload should contact their local NUT representative.

This example indicates the kind of positive changes NUT guidance can make to teachers’ professional lives:

APP - one teacher's story

APP was started at my school by a colleague who’s on the fast-track scheme and hoped to add something quickly and dramatically to his CV for assistant headship. Most of us had little idea of what it was and what it entailed. It was piloted and led by him and one year group, who used it for maths and writing for two terms. The rest of the school was expected to have it in place by the following summer. By this, I mean that all unit plans should have unit and APP objectives written in weekly and daily by the class, annotated daily by teachers, cover teachers and teaching assistants, with APP sheets for each child in the class highlighted weekly! This was reduced to just maths, but all the other proposals stayed in place until some staff rebelled.

Teachers showed their disapproval about the multiple objective recording, but we were told ‘tough!’ A week later, planning and APP sheets were called in and monitored and a number of wrists were slapped for being behind with the input.

So, when I came to the NUT’s national education conference and heard the representative from the QCA describe their expectations and read the guidelines from the NUT, I went straight back to school to spread the word and felt quite empowered! Suddenly, the whole thing has calmed down.

The senior management also decided to put a halt to the pace of change. As it happens, this is in line with the borough introducing it gradually and supporting teachers with planning adapted to reduce the burden. APP for writing is being referred to, but only on a half-termly basis or at end-of-unit assessment at most. A sample of children typical of differentiated groups is used.

Primary teacher, outer London

Joint statement agreed by the ASCL, ATL, NAHT, NASUWT, NUT, DCSF and QCA.

Assessing Pupils’ Progress: manageability
The purpose of this note is to provide guidance to schools on preventing excessive and unnecessary workload arising from Assessing Pupils’ Progress. Its use is voluntary. Any implementation of APP should be the subject of discussion and consultation with staff. Schools can adapt APP for their particular circumstances.

APP is designed to support teachers’ professional judgements about their pupils’ progress. It has been nationally developed and standardised to provide a common language for talking about learners’ achievement. It is not statutory but does provide a reference point for teachers in relation to national standards.

APP is a straightforward approach to making secure judgements about the standard of pupils’ work and what they need to do next. It:
• supports systematic assessment;
• supports a broad curriculum;
• has been shown to improve learners’ progress.

As part of a school development programme, it can:
• use what teachers know about their pupils to improve their learning;
• help learners understand their own learning and where to go next;
• give parents/carers better information about their children’s progress.
APP is not
• a knee-jerk reaction
• a quick-fix
• a bureaucratic exercise that just generates data
• a daily checklist to give levels to individual pieces of work
• just about deciding a level
• about creating unnecessary work.
APP
• has been developed over five years and has undergone a piloting and evaluation process in primary and secondary schools across the country
• any implementation is intended to take place over time and with support
• puts learners at the heart of the assessment process. Far from merely reducing them to numbers, APP provides a detailed personal profile that gives a clear and accurate picture of learners’ achievements and progress.
• is designed to help teachers get an overview of where learners are in the subject, based on a wide range of evidence. APP works best when used no more than twice or three times a year.
• helps teachers see where their pupils are, where they need to be and how they can get there. It can also help planning by identifying gaps in their teaching.
• does not require special assessment activities but uses evidence from day-to-day teaching and learning. It reduces the need to prepare for, set and mark time consuming tests and assessment tasks.