Research School Network: EEF Guidance Report: Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning David Bailey, takes a focus on 2 key points of the new report on feedback.

The recent publication of the EEF guidance report on ​‘Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning’, available at https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Feedback/Teacher_Feedback_to_Improve_Pupil_Learning.pdf, has been long awaited by schools. 

In this article, I would like to focus on a couple of key points that is raised by this report and pose a question.

The role of feedback

The first is the title,’Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning’ which highlights the role of feedback in improving learning. Having spent the last 8 years working in school improvement, I have sometimes wondered if some schools (and the system in general) has forgotten why we feedback at all. Much of the focus around feedback in some schools has been to show that they are providing feedback of sufficient quality and quantity to do well in an inspection, rather than the core purpose as highlighted in this report which is feedback to improve learning.

To illustrate this I will share a story that I have shared in a number of training sessions recently about a school I visited some time ago. I was asked to support a senior leader with assessing the quality of marking at the school, so I dutifully walked along to the room where they were based. On opening the door, I was greeted with a sight that I wasn’t expecting.

Across each of the desks in this room, there were piles of literally hundreds of A4 exercise books. On closer inspection, a range of subjects and age groups were represented. The senior leadership team had asked for a sample of books for a book scrutiny.

​“Oh good, are you here to help?” came the slightly exasperated question from the senior leader. ​“Of course!” I replied. ​“Tell me what is happening and I’ll see how I can help.”

The senior leader went on to describe the task that the school had set for itself. They were going through each of the piles and looking at the quality of feedback from the teachers and whether it met the school marking policy, which was a type of ​‘What Went Well, Even Better If’ comment. The comments were intended to be written approximately once a fortnight.

​“That is a lot of books to sample…”, I noted, to which the response was. ​“That is why I could do with some help!”

For the next few minutes, I looked at the piles and then chose one to look at. I took the pile of about 30 books and flicked through the first one. What was really interesting was that this pile was all beautifully marked, exactly as the policy had described. What was also interesting was the response, or lack of it in most cases.

In less than 10 minutes, I had divided the pile of books into two piles, one much larger than the other. I then spoke with the senior leader and asked if the wanted to talk through what I had done. When they saw the two piles, the asked ​“So which of those books had been marked properly?”, to which I replied ​“All of them…”. Slightly confused, they asked ​“So why are they separated out?” to which I replied ​“This pile [pointing to the large one] were the books where the teachers marking was perfectly aligned with the policy, and this pile [pointing to the small one] were the books where the marking was aligned to the policy and the pupils responded.” The small pile represented the impact of the teacher’s marking.

Subsequent discussions within and beyond the room led to a much revised policy, both in terms of what teachers were asked to do and how marking was then checked in the future, which resulted in a greater pupil response and therefore a greater impact over time.

Simply put, the role of feedback is to improve the quality of pupils’ work over time, and if it doesn’t do that, it isn’t working. Fortunately, the guidance report is aligned with this aim and following the recommendations (where you don’t already) would likely be a step forward in the right direction.

Nuanced, objective approach to feedback

It was really nice to see Valerie Shute’s review included in the evidence for the EEF Guidance Report. It is something that seemed to have been largely overlooked by previous work on marking and was something that I had used extensively in providing guidance to other schools since I became aware of this back in 2013. This, along with some of the other sources used have provided some more clear guidance as to how and when to give feedback and the formats that work best for this.

What is nice to see that in recommendation 2​‘Deliver appropriately timed feedback that focuses on moving learning forward’, this provides a useful framework that will help schools develop and implement their policies on feedback in a more nuanced way than has perhaps happened in the past. This is a recognition that feedback isn’t just feedback, sometimes you need to be much more responsive to pupil need and be much more objective that teachers might have been previously.

What about the rest?

In the same way that the EEF marking review focused on teacher marking, the focus of this report is teacher assessment. Although peer and self assessment is mentioned on p14, I would be keen to see how guidance can be exemplified to maximise the benefit of both types of assessment moving forward.

These points would come as no surprise to schools that have been through our Leadership Lite programme, as we have been using similar guidance for a while, and exemplifying this in a way that aims to get the best impact from all types of feedback, with the least effort.