Research School Network: Creating a feedback policy – a half-time reflection The story so far…

On 29^th September, I wrote a blog explaining how we were going to use the Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning guidance report
to structure our new feedback policy and how we were taking up 6 staff meetings to allow the time needed to explore it with our staff. You can read that blog here. In this blog, I will reflect on the 1^st three staff meetings and use feedback from colleagues to assess how the project is progressing.

Currently, we have delivered 3 staff meetings and covered the 3 key principles from the report.

All three meetings have followed a very similar pattern where staff are given time to read the relevant recommendation, then discuss how they see it working in their year group before sharing their thoughts to a wider discussion with everyone in the meeting. Each meeting has also ended with staff writing down initial ideas from the report that they want to go and ​‘deliberately practice’ with their class. There is also time at the start of the meetings for them to share examples of how these have worked, or not worked.

Personally, I have found the analogy of feedback being a windscreen and not a rear view mirror really useful. It has highlighted the important role that feedback plays and that it should impact on the future learning of the pupil. Also, recommendation 2 is my favourite and it is set out really well in the report. The focus on the principle is that of the windscreen but it also explicitly describes what the content of the feedback should be and it gives key stage examples to help readers understand what it could look like with their year group. I think the exemplification of these ideas in the report make it more accessible to those reading it.

Now we are halfway through our allotted meetings, I thought it best to ask my colleagues for their comments on how they are finding it so I can then reflect on the process and see what changes can be made for the next three meetings.

One Y1 teacher sent me the following –

I have personally found this a really useful process to reflect on the purpose of feedback and the value or lack of value of feedback we were giving before (particularly written feedback in year 1). I was always conscious that written feedback was not for the Year 1 children, but more a way of proving to SLT/​Ofsted that we had fed back to children. It was time consuming and pointless for the children in many ways and they would benefit more from us using the time to discuss their work with them. The meetings have given me the opportunity and confidence to discuss my feelings about feedback and find that most colleagues felt the same. I have been given the freedom to try out giving predominantly verbal feedback and this has had a positive effect in class. I can focus on the children more and do not have the pressure of having to find time to write in everyone’s book. The only negative thing I would maybe say is that I would have liked to have devoted more time/​effort into the reading, but have found it hard to do this along with all the other demands at the moment. I am really glad to have been a part of it though and look forward to finding out what the general conclusion of the feedback meetings will be!

Whilst we have allowed time in the meetings to read the recommendations, I think the final point is a really important one. If we want staff to understand and unpick what effective feedback looks like then they need the time to do this. Perhaps we needed to have scheduled in staff meetings where colleagues were given the time and space to re-read the guidance and be encouraged to reflect on the ideas and on their current practice. I wonder if there are any staff meetings available in the Spring term where this could be a possibility – it is certainly something that needs considering for future projects.

Splitting the recommendations up over numerous meetings has enabled my colleagues to try new ideas that emerge from their reading and discussions. I think that this step-by-step approach has been really beneficial to all and it has demonstrated how important we think effective feedback is and how we really want to get it right for the children in our school. The next comment from a Nursery teacher explains how the gap tasks have really helped them to see the potential content of the policy be brought to life in their classroom.

Exploring each recommendation in detail, as a team, has sparked positive discussion around current successful practice and how this can be developed. The gap tasks have encouraged me to trial new techniques in the classroom, which are positively impacting myself and the children now, instead of waiting until the new policy is complete.

At the start of the project, we had pencilled in some key principles that would outline our policy and, at present, they remain unchanged. They will ensure our policy is consistent throughout school but with the much-needed flexibility to ensure that feedback is effective to all ages.

These principles are that feedback at Wilbraham is:

- Effective
- Subject specific
- Personalised to the pupil
- Relevant to the task
- Acted upon
- Used to inform future planning
- Impacts on future learning

I am still really excited about how the project is progressing and I look forward to writing the policy. In a couple of weeks our core feedback team will be meeting to start to create some exemplification that will show how the above principles could look across all the year groups which will start to bring it all to life a bit more. Hopefully, in the New Year, I will be able to write about how the policy is being implemented with some more comments from adults and children.

Sarah Izon

Director of Aspirer Research School

Literacy Lead at Wilbraham Primary School