As a renowned and very credible edcuational research institution, the Education Endowment Fund strongly advises that the most effective way of driving up progress in learning and improving results is through providing very precise targetted feedback that enables learners to move forward, builidng on the success of their attainment and clarifying any areas of misunderstanding, or outlining the clear next steps that need to be made.

All faculties at Bushey Meads have worked tirelessly over many years to develop smart strategies to enable this to happen and last week it was inspiring to hear from our hard working colleagues in the Performing and Visual Arts Faculty and see how they approach this important aspect of their pedagogy.

In Art they have adopted a code marking approach to support students completing orange verbal feedback stickers and devised a differentiated approach towards end of unit tests to capture even better progress of learners. They have also redesigned their Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) activities to include an element of multiple choice in order to provide a more inclusive approach.

In Dance, assessment opportunities encourage frequent discussion and leadership opportunities to check and monitor the accuracy of assessment. The now embedded assessment booklets in Drama are being further developed to assist assessment, combining the approach with video analysis of live performances. Carefully scaffolded listening assessments also support great progress in Music.

The presentations made for a very inspiring start to the week last week.