The Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS) Pyramid Model

Pupil layer examples

©Primary Science Teaching Trust 2019

WHOLE SCHOOL

PROCESSES

SUMMATIVE reportingSummarise full breadth

Active PUPIL involvementE.g. Self and peer assessment

Responsive TEACHINGE.g. Clear focus, questions, feedback

SHARED UNDERSTANDINGof subject and assessment to support balance

of validity and reliability

The ongoing formative assessment can be summarised for different reporting purposes.

The base of the pyramid encapsulates the principles of assessment for learning.

Consideration of science in range of contexts supports VALIDITY (so that assessments consider all areas e.g. working scientifically).

Discussions to develop shared understanding supports RELIABILITY (consistency of judgements).

Focus, clear purpose and examples support MANAGEABILITY.

TAPS project lead: Dr. Sarah Earle, Bath Spa University

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PUPIL BOX 1:

PUPILS IDENTIFY THEIR EXISTING IDEAS, LEARNING NEEDS

AND INTERESTS, AND CONSIDER THOSE OF PEERS E.g. mindmaps, annotated drawings, KWL grids, mini whiteboards, post its, talk partners.

Pupil Voice Wall / Wal Llais Plant

At the start of a topic the class teacher records pupils’ questions on a Pupil Voice Wall (Wal Llais Plant). This strong pupil voice elicits what pupils are interested to find out and these questions lead the learning during the topic . During the lessons the teacher refers back to the Pupil Voice Wall to show how the pupils’ questions are being considered.

In a similar way Key Stage 2 pupils complete KWL grids to show specifically what they want to learn.

Link to video of teacher explaining: http://tinyurl. com/TAPSpencae

Year 1, Ysgol Gymraeg Pencae, Cardiff

Circle MapsEliciting prior knowledge at the start of a learning experience can support the pupils to identify what they already know, and also enables the teacher to build on prior knowledge. At Tongwynlais Primary this is done through the use of Circle or Thinking Maps. Pupils use these at the start of the session to record what they know, they then return to the thinking map at the end of the investigation to show what they have found out; this gives an indication to the teacher of progression. Teachers use these formatively to calculate next steps in learning. This example represents the use of a Circle Map to show a pupil’s learning about trees in Year 3.

Tongwynlais Primary, Cardiff

Active pupil involvementActive pupil involvement

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PUPIL BOX 1: PUPILS IDENTIFY THEIR EXISTING IDEAS, LEARNING NEEDS AND INTERESTS, AND CONSIDER THOSE OF PEERS

KWL gridAsk pupils to consider what they already Know about a topic and what they Want to find out. At a later date, return to the grid to consider what they have Learnt.

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, Yate

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Pre and post unit thought showers

At Northbury Primary children complete Pre and post unit thought showers for each topic. For example, at the beginning of the Y3 unit on Plants the child described factors which affect plant growth. At the end of the unit the child described photosynthesis and reproduction.

Northbury Primary School, Barking

Turning ideas into investigationsYear 3 explored magnets and their ideas about magnetism were summarized in the form of a Concept Cartoon. Each idea was discussed and the children chose what to investigate and how to test their ideas. For example, the children investigated ‘What type of materials does magnetism work through?’ and ‘Do magnets work in the dark?’.

Exeter Road Primary, Exmouth

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PUPIL BOX 2:

PUPILS FOCUS ON SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, SKILLS

AND ATTITUDES IN LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND SUCCESS CRITERIA. E.g. be clear about science focus rather than presentation etc.

Natural material bridges

Year 1 pupils at Pencae engaged with a series of bridges activities for their science technology focused assessment task.

During an initial whole class carpet session the class explored and discussed pictures of different bridges which helped them understand the purpose of a bridge and it also supported the development of their scientific vocabulary. Many pupils adopted the various names of the bridges (trawst, bwa and consertina). One group worked with the teaching assistant in the outdoor forest area of the school hunting down suitable natural resources which they experimented with and used the most appropriate to construct bridges. Pupils were clear about the design structure and through trial and error everyone succeed to build a bridge. The teaching assistant recorded the work through photographs.

Bridges

focused

task

Year 1, Ysgol Gymraeg Pencae, Cardiff

Opportunities for science in continuous provision

In the Foundation Phase at Penllergaer Primary School, the continuous and enhanced provision includes opportunities for science exploration. For example, at the sand tray there was an activity for using sieves to separate rice and pasta from the sand. At the water tray the children were provided with pipettes and challenged to make big or small drops, then to investigate what happened when they dropped water onto different materials.

Year 1/2 Penllergaer Primary, Swansea

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PUPIL BOX 2: PUPILS FOCUS ON SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, SKILLS AND ATTITUDES IN LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND SUCCESS CRITERIA.

Success criteria

These success criteria for designing a ‘perfect habitat’ for a small animal were generated by the children through a whole class discussion.

Year 4, Worlebury St Paul’s Primary School, Weston-super-Mare

Focus on science objectives

By using talk partners and a challenging creature, the focus is on discussion, question raising and explanation: What do you think it could be? Why?

Year 3, Ashley Down Schools, Bristol

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PUPIL BOX 3:

PUPILS ASSESS THEIR OWN IDEAS AND

WORK AGAINST KNOWN CRITERIA E.g. traffic lighting or highlighting objective, commenting on whether predictions are supported.

Self Assessment Pegs Chart

The Self Assessment Pegs Chart helps the pupils measure what they know or can do for a skill against RAG (red, amber, green) or smiley faces traffic lights. Every child has a peg with their name and they are able to place the peg on the traffic light/ smiley face they feel comfortable with at the start and end of a task. They can also record the traffic light colour and smiley face as a self assessment upon completion of their work. This Self Assessment Pegs Chart is a very visual way to see the progress of the whole class during the lesson and the teacher has an opportunity to consider the children’s understanding in order to direct the next steps during the lesson.

‘Prove it’ books for self assessment

In the Foundation Phase at Penllergaer Primary School, they had found it difficult to track which children had experienced which activity from the choice board of enhanced provision. They introduced a ‘Prove it’ book where the children complete a RAG self assessment for each numbered activity over the two weeks. This enabled teachers to both check that all children had experienced all activities, but also get a sense of whether the children felt confident or not, which would lead to discussions with the child as appropriate.

Year 1, Ysgol Gymraeg Pencae, Cardiff End of Year 1 into Year 2 Penllergaer Primary, Swansea

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PUPIL BOX 3: PUPILS ASSESS THEIR OWN IDEAS AND WORK AGAINST KNOWN CRITERIA

Making self assessment part of thelesson

Children are asked to decide whether they have met the objective. For example, initials on the board when you have…Stand on a chair if you have…

Self assessment in a floorbook

‘Sometimes we get children to record their initial ideas in a floor book. They can then revisit this at the end of a lesson or topic to review how their understanding has developed. Generally at the end of a lesson they would have the opportunity to say how they felt their learning went.  They'd usually mark it with a coloured dot, like a traffic light, or a smiley face, and peer assessment we do sometimes get them to mark their own work.  We will give them a set of criteria so they might give like a mark for the presentation, a mark if they gave a reason for their prediction, or something like that, and a mark for using scientific vocabulary.‘

Self assessment of attitudes to Science

A self assessment of how you feel about science using a ‘blob’ diagram (www.blobtree.com). Children select the one they identify with.

Malcolm Sargent Primary School, Stamford Oaktree Primary School, Swindon St Peter’s Primary School, Stoke-on-Trent

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PUPIL BOX 4:

PUPILS ASSESS PEERS’ IDEAS AND

WORK AGAINST KNOWN CRITERIA E.g. comment on another group’s presentation, give 2 stars and a wish for piece of work.

Magpie from peers

The ‘Magpie’ strategy is used in Year 5 at Tongwynlais. The teacher will ask the class what is

going well, and the pupils will make suggestions; the other pupils can then use their peers’ ideas

within their work. In this example the lesson applied science and technology skills to make a

marble run. These pupils had successfully used bendy straws to make a curved path, whereas

other pupils had struggled to curve their paths. The teacher asked these pupils to show what had

worked well and other pupils were then able to improve their work.

Responding to peer feedback

In a Year 5 lesson on Space the children were physically modelling the orbit of the Earth and moon using different sized balls. As they moved the balls they gave a commentary on what was happening, which was then peer assessed for clarity and accuracy. The groups gave advice to each other for how to improve their explanation to ‘become 5* scientists who use scientific vocabulary accurately’. This exemplifies assessment at Shaw: a clear framework for progression which is shared and used by both staff and pupils, enabling assessment to be used FOR learning.

Marble run task

Year 5, Tongwynlais Primary, Cardiff Year 5, Shaw Primary School, Melkesham

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PUPIL BOX 4: PUPILS ASSESS PEERS’ IDEAS AND WORK AGAINST KNOWN CRITERIA

Pupils make improvements to a science investigation

PSTT Fellow Robin James has explored using child-initiated video freeze-framing (CIVFF) to improve peer feedback in scientific enquiry. CIVFF is where groups watch videos of their own investigations to observe how they and other groups had approached the task. Children are invited to call, “Stop!” when they had a comment to share, stimulating dialogue between the children. The process enables direct and effective peer assessment where the children are offering feedback on the basis of evidence that is available and visible to all involved.For example, after spraying and pouring water onto different fabrics hanging over a tent frame under which Teddy was lying inside a paper sleeping bag, Year 2 pupils were able to say which they thought was the best material, linking this to evidence about how wet Teddy’s sleeping bag was. When they watched the video back, they began to evaluate their method, for example, spotting that structures may have collapsed rather than allowed the water through.

Year 2, Exeter Road Primary, Exmouth

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PUPIL BOX 4: PUPILS ASSESS PEERS’ IDEAS AND WORK AGAINST KNOWN CRITERIA

Peer assessment agreement

If it is only the teacher who gives feedback, then the balance is wrong and the learners do not actively participate in their own learning. However, we recognise that self and peer assessment are not something that learners can do instinctively and they will not happen overnight. Therefore, we coach learners to self and peer assess by modelling processes and strategies e.g. the kinds of questions and thinking which are helpful. We also train learners to work effectively in pairs and groups as this is an essential prerequisite to peer assessment. Usually learners need to be effective peer assessors before they become effective at self-assessment. To peer and self assess, the learners must fully understand the learning objectives and the success criteria – the success criteria will be understood and used most effectively if the learners have been involved in constructing them, as noted above. Otherwise, they have no frame of reference against which to assess and feedback will be low level and superficial. With this in place, learners can peer and self assess against the success criteria regularly throughout the lesson and make improvements to their work accordingly.

St Philip Evans RC Primary School, Cardiff

Peer assessment

Drove Primary makes use of peer assessment to evaluate learning against known criteria and inform next steps. The following examples are drawn from peers annotating each other’s work:

• ‘I like your explanation about dissolving and your sentence about the liquiddissolving the powder. Improve: maybe label the other two jugs in the picturebecause I don’t know what’s in them.’ (Peer feedback)

• ‘I like K’s technical vocabulary like pollination. The labels are clear and go in thecorrect order.’ (Peer feedback)

Drove Primary School, Swindon

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PUPIL BOX 5:

PUPILS USE ASSESSMENT TO ADVANCE THEIR

LEARNING BY ACTING ON FEEDBACK E.g. respond to mini-plenary advice in second half of lesson, make improvements in next investigation.

Pupils make improvements to a science investigation

Year 5 and 6 pupils were encouraged to reflect on their learning and evaluate and modify adissolving sugar cube investigation. The pupils had planned to time how long it tookfor the water to reach the top of the tower, but here the pupil has explained that “the base of the sugar cube tower was collapsing before we were able to measure the height that the water had travelled”, therefore they changed their investigation to record “how long it would take the base of a sugar cube tower to dissolve and the tower to collapse.”

Y5 Sugar task

Year 5/6, Blaenycwm Primary, Brynmawr

Mini-plenaries to provide feedback which can be acted on

Mini-plenaries provide an opportunity to pause and provide feedback, which can then be acted

on immediately within the lesson. For example, during a lesson on separating mixtures the

class teacher paused a number of times to: check that the pupils knew which equipment was

available; guide the pupils to separate one mixture at a time; and model the use of scientific

vocabulary (in this case ‘particles’ to help with explaining which materials would go through

the sieve). The use of questioning and prompts, for individuals, groups and the whole class,

supported the pupils to be successful in separating the materials and provided the teacher with

assessment information regarding which groups needed additional support.

Year 5, St Fagans Primary, Cardiff

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PUPIL BOX 5: PUPILS USE ASSESSMENT TO ADVANCE THEIR LEARNING BY ACTING ON FEEDBACK

Acting on feedback

At Shaw a high emphasis is put on speaking, listening and group work. This is combined with a focus on self and peer assessment in many lessons. For example, in Year 4 the children had found it difficult to create a branching key in their books, so the next lesson began with pupils making keys with ‘post its’ in small groups. After talk partners had formulated yes/no questions to divide the animals, the children identified for themselves if they felt confident or not, with those who found it tricky being placed with those who did not. After ten minutes creating their own keys, the pupils were given time to walk around to look at others’ work. Rather than the teacher picking out good ideas, these were put forward by the pupils who then went back to improve their key. They identified good Yes/No questions and that keys were easier to follow if they were laid out in a pyramid. They then returned to their own keys to check questions and layout.

Year 4, Shaw Primary School, Melkesham

Returning to a task

Here a pupil has completed a task, the teacher has given feedback and the pupil has had another go.

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, Yate

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PUPIL BOX 6:

PUPILS COLLABORATIVELY (WITH PEERS/TEACHERS)

IDENTIFY NEXT STEPS IN LEARNING E.g. identify which part of the success criteria is missing, consider how to make the measurement more accurate.

What to investigate next

In this Nursery class activity the teacher encouraged pupils to reflect on their learning and to

think about what they could do differently next time if they were to change the investigation. The

teacher photographed the pupils carrying out their investigation on Rocket Mice and these were

annotated to show the discussion between pupils and teacher.

The teacher asked the pupils ‘if we could do the experiment again what could we change?’ The

pupils were able to respond with a variety of answers including using a bigger/smaller milk bottle

or a bigger/smaller mouse, demonstrating they are beginning to understand cause and effect.

Some children also suggested using a real space rocket.

Use a big mouse

What could we change if

we did it again?

Bigger bottlesSmall

mouse

Y2 Rocket mice task

Nursery , Marlborough Primary, Cardiff

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Prompts to identify next steps

At the end of a sound muffling investigation, the pupils discussed their findings and recorded their conclusions. The ‘QR’ code contains a video clip of children testing out ear muffs they had made. The pupils concluded that ‘the best material to muffle sound was cotton wool’, and gave reasons based on scientific knowledge as to why this might be the case. The subtitles prompted the children to link their learning to real life contexts and reflect on success criteria and next steps . For example, next time for a more accurate reading they would consider using sound sensors.

Year 6, Edwardsville Primary, Merthyr Tydfil

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PUPIL BOX 6: PUPILS COLLABORATIVELY (WITH PEERS/TEACHERS) IDENTIFY NEXT STEPS IN LEARNING

Identifying next steps

Children put forward ideas for what they would like to learn next. For example, pupils can put their questions and queries on a class Wonder wall:

• Facts we want to check.• Things we want to find out.

Individual next step cards can remind the children of a current focus. The example here includes capital letters for English, times tables for Maths and using observations for Science.

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Year 5/6 Holt Primary School, Wiltshire

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