Abstract

The most common area of discussion in educational institutes is how opportunities to improve the method in which monitoring and assessment are being taken. This shows that the number one priority for schools and colleges is how whether or not students are making satisfactory progress according to their ability thus monitoring and assessment can be referred to as the pathway to ensure constant development in education is being made with particular focus on teaching and learning.

The year group that was focused on in relation to the literature discussed was a year 12 AS Business Studies class. The scheme of work focuses on one of the topics from unit 2 of the AQA specification and includes lesson objectives designed for mixed ability students. The scheme of work also includes different methods of formative and summative assessment targeting the needs of lower and higher ability students.

Over the course of the lessons in which the scheme of work was taught, students showed good levels of progress through both, formative and summative assessment which is presented in the data of the literature. When it came to the summative assessments such as the case studies, students were able to build on their targets from the previous lesson with the aim to hit the higher AO levels of good application, analysis and evaluation which is shown in the end of topic test that was taken.

Introduction

The way in which monitoring and assessment is carried out is very specific to the needs and demands of the school. Every school will have a monitoring and assessment strategy in place which will be unique for itself. The school in which I am currently training at has an age range of 11-18 thus how progress is measured from year 7 all the way to sixth form is something that needs to be tracked throughout their time with the school. Last years exam results show that 47% achieved A*- C which is slightly below the national average of 53%. The school is a mixed gender school and diverse in its ethnic make-up although with a predominant number of Bangladeshi students making up approximately two-thirds of the 909 students in the school (Ofsted, 2014).

The topic that was chosen to base this literature on was from Unit 2 of the AQA Business Studies specification at AS Level. The topic chosen was ‘Operations Management’ and the reason behind this choice was due to students having finished most of the other content and provides a good platform to draw in other topics due to the nature of its content. Having been so far into the year, they also had sufficient background knowledge on key words and terms from studying other topics which meant spending one lesson on specific sub-topics was enough for students to grasp and have an assessment on.

The Scheme of Work was designed to ensure that it is up to date in terms of what happens in the business world in relation to the unit content. Real life examples and experiences were required for students to bring in and demonstrate through discussion, presentation, role play and so forth. Sub-topics such as ‘Customer service’ and ‘Quality’ are topics that can be brought to life and is something that needed to be revised from previous Schemes of Work on the topic. The unit chosen also provides the advantage of being able to apply what you learn to your own work places or future businesses which encourages students to take the subject by the collar and experience it. Though there are different forms of kinaesthetic learning taking place, it was essential to include different forms of assessment each lesson in the Scheme of Work in order to ensure students are being prepared for the exam. The scheme of work created includes summative and formative assessments which aim to challenge students in order to achieve the exam requirement that has been set by the exam boards.

Literature Review

With regards to the literature written on monitoring and assessment, there are many debates over how it should be carried out which consequently leads to debates over which methods are more effective and which are least effective. There are also many debates surrounding the factors that affect monitoring and assessment in particular validity of student’s achievements i.e. is it a true representation of the ability of the student, and on the performance criteria that schools set for its students. i.e. are students being challenged and stretched across the board and what constitutes ‘satisfactory progress’ for each student.

When planning the lessons it is vital to take into consideration that not all students will achieve the higher level objectives and thus it is crucial to give every individual student the opportunity to reach the maximum marks they can achieve according to their ability. If for example the lesson is taught with aims of everyone reaching the highest marks then the lower ability students will get left behind as the work may be too complex for them. In order to do this correctly it is important to analyse the student’s data in terms of their previous grades and achievements as this will enable the teacher to make a more accurate judgement on the progress they should be making and where they would want them to be with current progress and for the future. Behnhardt (2013) states that using student data is the starting point of effective teaching as this comes before any formative or summative assessment can be made in class and she goes on to say that “Schools that simply gather, but make no sustained effort to analyse and use data are at a substantial disadvantage.”

The data that was used for the year 12s in this research was mainly their GCSE scores in Maths and English as it is a good indication of how they would perform in Business Studies A Levels, as the exams are often focused on writing skills and there is also an element of Maths in most topics including the topic that was covered in this Scheme of Work. The data also focuses on predicted grades and target grades, identifying students attendance any SEN concerns and whether they are a Pupil Premium Student or not which can be found in the Appendix folder (See Appendix B for class data). However, some researchers in this field have gone on to say that, although student data is of importance to teachers, it should not be relied on entirely and it is up to teachers ourselves to create our own portfolio of data from what we see visually in class. This view is supported by Tovani (2011) who states that “To be the best we can be, teachers must ask themselves, How does the data we are given compare with what we know about our students? If we don’t completely trust what we see, we must work hard to collect our own data – data that we trust.”

This leads us to the question of how we gather this form of data ourselves in class. In order to monitor and assess students effectively it is vital to adopt different teaching styles to meet different learning styles. Harder et al (2010) states that monitoring student progress lies in the hands of the teacher and how they are ‘formatively assessing’ their students each lesson. This is further supported by Headington (2003) who states that “Formative assessment informs future teaching and learning and is at the heart of practice in the classroom. For example, the teacher may discover, when questioning pupils, that several have misunderstood an explanation. She may decide to intervene and provide teaching which will address the difficulty and so improve pupils learning.” From this we can gather that formative assessment is crucial to recognise student’s progression in lessons and opens the door to monitor your student’s progress through methods of Assessment For Learning such as effective questioning.

One way in which I incorporated formative assessment in my lessons is through Socratic questioning. This is where I planned a sequence of questions to reach a conclusion, targeting different types of questions depending on the ability of the student. For example student 2 is a lower ability student thus the more simpler questions such as definitions and analysis questions with guidance will be targeted at them whereas Student 4 is a higher ability student thus the more evaluative questions with less assistance will be targeted at them. This form of effective questioning was used in the first lesson of the Scheme of Work whereby I asked questions such as ‘What do you think Low Utilisation of Capacity is?’ to a lower ability to student and stretched them by asking for an example of Low Capacity Utilisation, whereas a higher ability student was asked ‘How can a business deal with Low capacity utilisation?’ and stretch them by asking what impact does this solution have on a business?

Despite knowing their GCSE grades and their predicted grades for AS, during the course of the first lesson of the topic, I became more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of students on this topic and this enabled me to carry out the rest of my planning for each lesson according to their understanding from the first lesson. Chappius (2004) suggests that a teacher should not make the judgement that a student will struggle with an aspect of a subject because of previous topics as a new topic or unit creates new opportunities and students therefore should be given the opportunity to flourish rather than be limited to how much they should be stretched because of previous data. As business studies is a contemporary subject, it is evident to see that some students feel they can relate to certain topics more so than other topics, thus they are stretched a bit more in those topics. For example; in the last sub-topic of ‘Using technology in operations’; Student 2 despite being a lower ability student, knew how businesses use technology due to working at Argos and being familiar with their use of automation for stock levels and also having a keen interest in technology and I.T.

It can be seen in the Appendix folder (See Appendix A for SOW) that from the five lessons planned for this topic; three of the subtopics contained summative assessments in the form of case studies for students to do. Taras (2005) states that summative assessment is broadly approved to be the form of assessment that delivers the final verdict which captures all the progress a student has made up to a given point. However summative assessments are only effective if the appropriate measures are taken before, during and after they are taken and this is summarised by Stiggins (2004) who suggested a set of questions must be asked in order to ensure that the summative assessment that have been set up serves the purpose of monitoring and assessing a student’s progress. His suggestions are as follows: “1. What is the purpose of the assessment? Who will use the results? How? 2. What are the learning targets? Are they clear? Appropriate? 3. Assess how? What method? Built of quality or relevant ingredients? 4. Communicate how? Reported to whom? In what form?”

The main form of assessment used in this Scheme of Work was the end of unit assessment on a given case study (See Appendix D for Lesson Plan). The sixth form has a procedure whereby students should be given a formal summative assessment such as case studies to attempt for at least half of the subtopics that are covered for exam practice and the remaining lessons, a more engaging form of assessment is planned whereby students are still demonstrating comprehension of the topic, through presentations, role play or simply working in pairs and feeding back to the rest of the class and this was included in sequence of lessons in the SOW as students respond differently to different forms of assessment. The reason why the school encourages summative assessments every other lessons can be summarised by Wininger (2005) who states that summative assessments are a powerful tool that enables the school to provide a student with a score which can be used for differentiation within the class.

However, researchers in this field have also criticised summative assessments with the main reason for criticism being that summative assessments can be said to overlook or disregard how students are doing and focus too much on how students did at the end of teaching period (Kibble et al, 2011). This argument is more lenient towards the significance of formative assessment and is further supported by (Black and William 1998) who state that formative assessment assist students in developing as learners and this as a result enables intervention to take place if necessary whereas summative assessment is usually carried out after learning has taken place.

With regards to the literature written in this field, it can be said that different practitioners agree on different forms of assessments to be the most effective form of analysing student progress however it is important to note that students also respond differently to different forms of assessment therefore it is never as clear cut to make a conclusion on a student’s progress based on one form. As it can be seen from the SOW, a range of different forms of assessments were included, such as effective questioning, paired-feedback task, role plays and case study assessments and only through the use of all of this can a school and more importantly a class teacher come to a conclusion about how to respond to the student’s progress.

Pupil Progression Analysis

In order to demonstrate how students made progress, four sample students were selected from the class. Two of the students selected have been classified as ‘lower ability’ students with one intermediate student and one ‘higher ability’ student. In the following section, their progress will be analysed according to their data and key assessments.
Student 1
Student GCSE
Eng

GCSE
Maths

AS
Buss
Pred/Targ
AS
Scly
Pred/Targ
AS
Psy

Pred/Targ

Attendance
Record
(Last term)
Student 1 C
C
D / C
D / C
D / C

84.20%

Student 1 is a Pupil Premium Student and is currently not meeting his predicted grades. His absence is of concern to the school which is affecting his class work and end of topic assessments. He achieved a C in GCSE maths and a C in English, which shows despite being a pupil premium student he was able to exceed his predicted grades in year 11 which were two D’s. However since moving on to sixth form he has been struggling with attendance and his average homework score for this unit is 33% and this is due to one not being handed in and him not putting in enough effort in others. He achieved a Grade D in the end of topic test which was a much better improvement from the previous end of topic test where he achieved a Grade U (See End of Topic Assessment Results in Appendix C).

His Baseline data from year 7 shows he went from 3C- 3A which suggests Student 1 did not make a lot of progress throughout his school years however from his GCSE results it shows that he is capable of surpassing what was predicted for him and achieved a Grade C for both Maths and English. In comparison to the rest of the class, he was one of the students who achieved their predicted grade, with 20% not achieving theirs and more importantly he has demonstrated that he does not struggle with the writing aspect of the exams where he achieved 12 out of 14 in the higher marker questions but what often lets him down is the knowledge on topics which can be improved with attendance (See Marked Work in Appendix C).

Student 2
Student GCSE
Eng

GCSE
Maths

AS
Buss
Pred/Targ
AS
Eco
Pred/Targ
AS
Accn

Pred/Targ

Attendance
Record
(Last term)
Student 2 C
C
D / C
E / C
D / C

95.70%

Student 2 is one of the less-able students in the class. Though he got 7 A*-C’s in his GCSE’s out of the 9 he took and achieved a C in both English and Maths, he was evidently struggling in A-Levels and his predicted grades were 2 D’s in Business Studies and Accounting and an E in Economics. His target grade for all three subjects were a grade C therefore the formative and summative assessments that were planned for the lesson had to ensure that he was being stretched in order to achieve his target grade. One key element from his last two reports in business studies suggests that his classroom involvement is low and this could be due to lack of confidence or the complexity of the questions posed to him.
His baseline data from year 7 shows that he went from 3A to 4C, so achieving C’s in GCSE was expected for him however at A Levels, it could be quite challenging, though achievable.

Through the use of in-class questioning and giving Student 2 simpler questions which I thought he would be confident to answer, in time he was able to not only remember definitions but also give examples where necessary to demonstrate a good level of comprehension. This developed as the Scheme of Work moved forward and he was more confident in his answers. This proved to have a positive effect on his summative assessments as well whereby he achieved his predicted grade of a D which was an improvement from his previous end of topic assessment which was a Grade E (See End of Topic Assessment Results in Appendix C). Though he achieved a higher mark in the first topic, it is important to note that the topic of Finance included a lot of Maths whereas getting him to achieve a Grade D in a more written based exam is a huge achievement. Achieving his predicted grade was in line with the rest of the class when as most of the class achieved their predicted grade with 2 students achieving their target grade and two students falling short of their predicted grade.

Student 3
Student GCSE
Eng

GCSE
Maths

AS
Buss
Pred/Targ
AS
Eco
Pred/Targ
AS
Accn

Pred/Targ

Attendance
Record
(Last term)
Student 3 C
B
C / B
C/ B
B/ B

98.80%

Student 3 is an intermediate student who achieved a Grade B for Maths and a Grade C. His attendance is high at 98.8% and also is a regular contributor in class. His predicted grade for business studies was a C and he does have the ability to achieve this however due to time management issues in the end of topic test he was not able to answer the last question which dropped his grade to an E. However he does show a good understanding of how to answer questions and achieved 67% from the questions he did answer which suggests he was on course to achieving his target grade of a B (See Marked Work in Appendix C).

His time management issue in answering questions is something that we have discussed and student 3 will ensure that he times himself at home when doing the homework assessments. As for in class strategies I have worked with the class on case studies by reading them through it and highlighting key points (See Lesson Plan 4 in Appendix D), this way they are able to refer back to the case study when needed and a lot of time is saved not going through the case study again and again. Through different practices and timing himself at home, Student 3 will see a significant improvement in his grade as his issue is not a lack of ability but rather planning his time effectively.

Student 4
Student GCSE
Eng

GCSE
Maths

AS
Buss
Pred/Targ
AS
Eco
Pred/Targ
AS
Scly

Pred/Targ

Attendance
Record
(Last term)
Student 3 A
B
A / A
B/ C
B/ B

100.00%

Student 4 is higher ability student and is one of the higher achievers in the class. She is the only student from the sample that achieved higher than a C in the end of topic test and was one of two students in the whole class who achieved a B or higher. Her homework is consistent, however fell short by 2% of achieving an average of 60%, however she has consistently demonstrated sound understanding of the topic, whether its in class assessments, homework, or end of topic test.

In comparison to national trends, only 27% of students who took Business Studies A Levels achieved a Grade B, with majority achieving a Grade C therefore the level she is working at is above the national average grade. Her attendance is also 100% and this a reflection of her dedication to work which shines above most of the class as the average attendance in class comes to 94.6% (See Class Data in Appendix B). Effective questioning in lessons was essential in stretching Student 4 to encourage high level thinking and evaluation with minimal guidance, however in order for her to progress further and achieve her target of Grade A, she must ensure she is as engaged in other forms of assessments such as role plays and presentations as this will enable her to develop other forms of learning.

Evaluation

Overall, I believe the scheme of work was prepared to a good standard to enable me to deliver lessons in an effective way taking into consideration various aspects of teaching and learning. The unit included a various range of activities to use for assessments, to which students responded differently meeting the strengths and addressing the weaknesses of all students.

From the sample students, although no one from the sample achieved their target grades in the end of topic assessment, the students responded well in class, with one of the lower ability students showing very good progress by hitting the higher AO levels, however he was unable to get higher marks due to absence issues and missing out on one lesson therefore missing a question out. One of the sample students achieved a B which showed that learning was taking place at all levels and opportunities were being created for higher ability students and necessary feedback was given in order to stretch them to achieve their overall target grades.
Furthermore, through the use of in-class assessment strategies such as using ‘post-its’ for feedback, ‘hands up, hands down’ method and effective questioning throughout the scheme of work I was able to recognize and categorise student’s progress and know how to approach the next lesson for that specific student. This is in line with what has been above discussed in the literature review where many practitioners in the field have said that assessment is much more than writing a score at the end of a term based on an end of unit test but rather how a student is developing lesson by lesson through effective teaching strategies.

The changes I would make if I were to do this again would be to engage and work more with other members of the school such as head of years and other subject departments. Through this I would be able to identify why a student is performing the way are and if there are any issues across the board which could be affecting their progress in my lessons. I would also try to ensure that a few more of their assessments are self-assessed as this will enable them to recognise their areas of development and promote independent learning.

In conclusion, by carrying out this study, it has enabled me to understand how assessment and monitoring takes place in schools to a more in depth level. I have realised how students respond differently to different forms of assessments and how to make opportunities for students to achieve their potential in the final assessment that will determine their overall grade at the end of the year. Most importantly, through creating this scheme of work and studying the significance of monitoring and assessment I have learned how each lesson is interlinked so delicately to the previous and next lesson and the effect it has on student’s progress on an individual level and how to carry these lessons out effectively to address the needs of each student.

Bibliography

Bernhardt, V (2013). Using Data to Improve Student Learning in Middle School. New York: Routledge

Black, P and William, D (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5, No: 1

Chappuis, S (2004). Assessment for Learning: An Action Guide for School Leaders. Portland: Assessment Learning Institute

Harder, R., Orlich, D., Callahan, R., Trevisan, M., Brown, A (2010). Teaching Strategies: A guide to effective Instruction. Boston: Cengage Learning

Headington, R (2003). Monitoring, Assessment, Recording, Reporting and Accountability: Meeting the standards. New York: David Fulton Publishers

Kibble, J (2011). Insights Gained from the Analysis of Performance and Participation in Online Formative Assessment. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 23.

Ofsted. (2014). Langdon Park Community School: Ofsted Report. Available: reports.ofsted.gov.uk/index.php?q=filedownloading/&id…type. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

Stiggins, R (2003). Classroom Assessment for Student Learning : Doing it Right – Using it Well. USA: First Printing

Taras, M (2005). Assessment – Summative and formative – Some Theoretical Reflections. British Journal of Education Studies, 53, No: 4.

Tovani, C (2011). So What Do They Really Know? Assessment that informs teaching and learning. UK: Stenhouse Publishers.

Wininger, S (2005) Using your tests to teach: Formative Summative Assesment. Teaching of Psychology, 32, No: 3.
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Posted on May 12, 2016Author TutorCategories Question, Questions