Research School Network: Reflections on the latest guidance report – with help from Year 6 pupils. Thoughts on the latest report – Teacher feedback to improve pupil learning

In anticipation of the latest guidance report from the EEF – Teacher feedback to improve pupil learning, I wanted to ask the 90 Year 6 pupils at my school about feedback and marking. Due to Covid-19 risk assessments, the children’s books have not been marked by their teacher as often as before. Much of the feedback this year has been verbal and during the lesson. Also, there has been an increase in pupils marking their own work at the end of the lesson, where appropriate.

The first question I asked was ​‘How do you know that you have had a successful lesson?’ and I did not provide any options, it was very open-ended. The top 3 most common responses were, 1. The number of correct answers, 2. I knew that I understood what I was doing and 3. I just had a feeling that it had gone well. This made me think about the importance on including some instant feedback in the lesson, especially when the answers are right or wrong. This could be a clear indicator to pupils, and the teacher, where more support is needed. With regard to metacognitive strategies, it can also offer validation to pupils that the strategy they have chosen is/​or is not working well for them.

The second question I asked was ​‘How do you know that you are making progress in a subject?’ and again there were no options to guide their answers. The top 2 answers: 1. I get more correct answers than before and 2. The teacher tells me, show just how important feedback can be to their understanding of progression. The next two answers focused on feeling more confident and understanding a little bit more each lesson. This highlights the importance of ensuring that foundations are laid through formative assessment so that the teacher can accurately plan the next step of learning.

The third question was ​‘This year, your books have been marked less, how have you found this?’ and it was these answers that really surprised me. The majority of pupils said that they did not mind because they were given the time to mark their own work and enjoyed learning from their mistakes, with one pupil saying that they felt proud because the teacher trusted them to mark it accurately.

However, there was a group of children who did not like the change because they wanted the teacher to look at their work and leave a comment or they wanted it marked so when they took their books home their parents would see how well they were doing. Additionally, some stated that they found it confusing as they were not sure how to improve. Moving forwards and linking to the advice in the guidance report, this is where the teacher’s knowledge of their pupils is crucial – who will benefit from clear written feedback and who does not require it.

The fourth question, ​‘If a teacher does mark your book, how helpful is this in showing you what you need to improve?’ provided the most interesting answers to me. Nearly all the children agreed that the comments given were incredibly helpful is showing them where they went wrong and what they needed to do to improve. This shows me that the teachers at my school understand the role that feedback plays in the classroom. As Dylan Wiliam states in the guidance report foreword, on page 5, ​‘the main role of feedback, at least in schools, is to improve the learner, not the work’ and comments like ​‘well done’ or ​‘improve the presentation’ are not likely to impact upon the pupil. This is also supported by the evidence behind Recommendation 2: Deliver appropriately timed feedback that focuses on moving learning forward, which explains that feedback that focuses on personal characteristics ​‘is less likely to be effective…it may not provide enough information to close a learning gap and move learning forward.’(page 21)

The guidance report explains that research shows no difference in impact when the feedback intervention was delivered in the lesson, immediately after or up to a week after. At Wilbraham, the majority of Year 6 pupils stated that they enjoyed being able to mark their own work as then they can see where they went wrong and learn from their own mistakes. Therefore in certain lessons, feedback for clear answers could be beneficial. This would allow the teachers more time after school to spend planning the next lesson and enables the pupils to get that instant knowledge about how successful they have been. This method works in a maths lesson where most answers are correct or incorrect, but it might not be as effective after a writing focus as the children need to be clear about what makes effective writing. This is where it is key that the teachers have laid the right foundations: they have shared the learning intentions and used formative assessment to ensure that they have pitched the lesson correctly for their students. If the children are confident about the key features their writing needs then discussions focussed around unpicking a model text might be enough to enable them to evaluate their own. However, if this is not enough then the teacher needs to think about how best to give feedback – verbally or written; individually, to groups or the whole class? Again it depends on the focus of the next lesson, if the children have the opportunity to improve their work then the teacher needs to use their knowledge of their pupils: who will relish the challenge of improving it with little guidance and who will need the extra scaffold of feedback to guide them?

As you can see, having a flexible feedback policy is going to be really important because the teachers need to feel confident that their decisions will be supported, that they will not be seen as lazy because they did not mark all the books or that they have not marked the same way as their other year group colleagues. Professor Becky Francis states in the foreword of the report that policies

…should specify the need for evidence informed principles to be at the heart of practice, and exemplify this, but the methods and timing should be left to a teacher’s professional judgement. When and how to offer feedback is most appropriately answered by the teacher responding to the particular learning context of an individual pupil. (page 4)

There is so much to take from the latest guidance report and it should, hopefully, generate a lot of discussions in schools up and down the country and encourage a lot of contemplation over current feedback and marking policies. As ever, schools need to bear in mind the advice from the Putting Evidence to Work – A School’s Guide to Implementation guidance report and use the Implementation Process Diagram as a guide when thinking about making changes so they are effective.

In addition the EEF have produced a Senior Leader Implementation Pack linked to the Teacher feedback to improve pupil learning which I thoroughly recommend that you take a look.

One final comment in the foreword from Wiliam Dylan that stuck with me was ​‘As Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis and Chappuis remind us, the most important decisions taken in classrooms are not taken by the teachers but rather by the learners’ (page 5). Maybe more schools need to ask how their pupils feel about feedback and marking before making any decisions or implementing any changes. For my school, what I want to do next is to look more closely at the pupils’ understanding of verbal feedback and the impact that has on their learning – this could well become another future blog!

Sarah Izon

Lead of Aspirer Research School

Literacy Lead at Wilbraham Primary School