Research School Network: Feedback

My Sunday mornings are spent coaching U10s rugby. It’s something I have done for the last few years with varying degrees of success. My skill as a player was (and still is) limited but my interest in helping others to improve has always been strong.

The club at which I coach was an early advocate of Kids First Rugby, an approach which emerged from research commissioned by the RFU and undertaken by Exeter University. The focus was very much on improving skills and increasing levels of retention as children moved into the adult game. The findings of the trial in 2007 led to modifications at a national level with a more progressive approach to the rules in each age group. In essence, they concluded that children learn best in small sided games; they need to play and be actively involved in the game in order to improve their skills.

The key findings may not be entirely surprising from an educational perspective. Rugby can be a complicated game. If you think explaining the offside rule to 9 year olds in football is hard, you should try doing it in rugby. But by isolating the different skills to different year groups, it enables you to focus on what is being learned. If the team knows exactly what they should be doing, it is easier for the players to receive (and for the coach to give) feedback on whether they are being successful.

Those of you familiar with the EEF’s Teaching & Learning Toolkit will know that feedback is one of the areas that can have the greatest impact on student progress. The costs are not high and meta-analysis of the impact of formative assessment suggests that up to 8‑month gains are achievable, in one academic year. Broader research evidence also highlights the importance of complex and challenging tasks which encourage effort and perseverance. Students’ interest in their own progress needs to be retained.

The guidance concludes with two pertinent questions:

• Have you considered the challenges of implementing feedback effectively and consistently in your school?
• What professional development is likely to be necessary for successful implementation of feedback in your school?

In essence, feedback is important but how are you going to undertake it in a sustainable and effective way so that all of your teachers are doing it? The challenge is great; traditional marking is time-consuming. Even the investors in season 16 of The Dragon’s Den were prepared to take an investment punt when offered a positive solution to this problem.

When faced with issues such as this I often return to a quote by Dylan Wiliam,​“The job you are doing is so hard one lifetime is not enough to master it.” Improving the quality of feedback in our schools is a challenge, which at times may feel impossible, but it is the act of trying to solve such complex and challenging problems that the EEF is advocating as a way of improving the effectiveness of feedback. So … we need to give feedback on the effectiveness of our feedback so we can become better at giving feedback.

At The Blue School, we have provided students with a consistent feedback template in bespoke exercise books. Using comment boxes with headings of WWW and EBI, there is the opportunity to identify whether the evaluative comments are completed by the student, their peer or their teacher. There is also a tick box to identify whether the progress objective was achieved in part, fully or exceeded. At the back of the book is a subject assessment grid where a grade and the next steps in learning are recorded and the information is signed by the parent.

It is early days. We are striving for an effective structure with continuity across subjects. Discussions are taking place across teams and through our newly formed staff coaching groups. We are also reviewing the process through a range of student voice work. Similar to rugby, we are ensuring the focus is clear and precise. We have a long season ahead of us but we need everyone to remain actively involved in the game in order to improve and succeed.

Max Harvey
Deputy Headteacher
The Blue School