We view feedback as being an essential part of the education process. The thread which runs through our Academy is that feedback is designed and delivered to enhance the knowledge of the student, ensuring any misconceptions, errors and gaps are addressed on an individual, small group or whole class basis. Teachers within our Academy aim to future-proof students' learning and knowledge by ensuring feedback is bespoke, timely and administered in the most efficient way. Our approach is rooted in the idea that feedback secures students’ learning by supporting their understanding of how to improve, closing the gap between where they are and where the teacher wants them to be. Feedback that moves learning forward is both efficient and effective: it is clear, timely, focused, and actionable and should result in more work for the students than the teacher.

Feedback is provided in a number of different ways, each department has carefully mapped feedback opportunities into the curriculum across both KS3 and KS4, these are the points in the curriculum where feedback will be most beneficial. A variety of techniques are used to provide feedback, including live marking, verbal feedback and whole-class feedback, which reduces teacher workload and supports a timelier feedback and improvement cycle. 

Here are the main types of feedback that are seen in our classrooms: Verbal Feedback, Whole Class Feedback; Live Marking/Feedback;  Dot/Highlighter Feedback; Peer Feedback and Self-Correction.

Approaches to Feedback and Techniques

Quizzing- No/Low stakes quizzing is an effective retrieval method that can make students aware of gaps and can highlight to the teacher any misconceptions or content that has not been committed to long-term memory.

Daily Do Now – Retrieval questions at the start of each lesson. For optimal retrieval practice, students should be presented with a mixture of fact questions (multiple choice, short answer facts, true/​false, recitation of quotes and facts, and creating lists) and more demanding questions (defining, evaluating, elaborating, and explaining). Instant feedback is given through swift self-marking and correction- no longer than 8 minutes to complete and mark. Teachers should use this to inform their RTM and spot any MEG which will be addressed at the correct time. All KS4 lessons in all subjects use the academy template below, KS3 uses a variation of this depending on the nature of the discipline.

 

Responsive Teaching Points (RTPs- Blue Box) – low stakes and take the form of a MCQ, Knowledge Drop, LSQ, Retrieval Mat, Practical Skills, Exit Ticket . These can include: knowledge organiser questions; multiple choice; keyword definitions; vocabulary; spelling; labelling a diagram; recalling key facts; hinge questions. Expected answers are single words, definitions, formulas, or symbols. The quizzes build in spacing and interleaving over the year/course. All students in the same year group answer the same questions due to our centrally planned curriculum.  Instant feedback is provided through immediate in-class marking. Teachers record scores and identify knowledge that requires recap, re-teaching, retrieval. Problematic areas are interrogated across the year groups for common knowledge gaps.

Responsive Teaching Points (RTPs- Grey Box Synoptic) – End of topic/chunk and cumulative. Synoptic RTPs (grey boxes) assess a broader domain and provide a higher mark-more summative judgement on students learning through the curriculum with built in spacing and interleaving over the year/course. Peer marked in class for immediate feedback. Teachers record scores. Analysis of scores result in curriculum reviews, amendments, or alterations where required. 
 

Responsive Teaching - Approaches to Feedback in the Responsive Teaching Cycle Obtaining feedback from students frequently ensures the lesson is progressing appropriately, instruction is of a high quality, and misconceptions/errors/gaps are not present.
 

Our teachers: 

Circulate - Strategic circulation, providing feedback and immediate intervention. Actively monitor work during circulation, noting students who have the wrong answers. Dot marking/highlighter marking can and should be used here. During a period of independent practice the teacher will circulate the room looking for misconceptions, errors and gaps. If the teacher notices errors in SPAG or knowledge then a dot/highlighter will be placed at the point of error within the student's book. If appropriate the student will then address the error immediately.

Live mark - Completed with the whole-class using the visualiser. Teacher narrates (students may contribute if appropriate) making improvement suggestions as a collective. Students instantly act on feedback through redrafting their own work, for example. Exemplar models can be used when appropriate. Can be used in conjunction with WCF to model examples of excellence. If common themes across the class emerge, this will be referenced in the RTM.

Check for understanding – Mini-whiteboards should be used routinely and regularly to check for whole class understanding before progressing through the content. Students' responses should be obtained through a variety of techniques e.g Cold Calling, No Opt Out, Show Call can be used to track and probe understanding, identify knowledge gaps, and eradicate misunderstandings/misconceptions (MEG).

Reteach/Retrieve – Determine whether content requires ‘Reteaching’ or ‘Retrieving’ and adapt accordingly- RTMs should be the cornerstone of this. Be conscious of reteaching ‘in the moment’ as the explanations and questions have not been intellectually prepared in advance and therefore may not have the desired impact. 

Verbal Feedback – Continuous high-quality dialogue between teacher and students. Verbal feedback is immediately acted upon, and their understanding crucially re-checked. If common mistakes and misconceptions are evident during circulation, teachers should stop the class, and re-teach the aspect. This process allows for live in the moment guidance that aims to steer students towards success. Verbal feedback can reveal underlying misconceptions immediately and reduce the time needed later on to address these. When circulating the room teachers will check students' work and offer corrective feedback. Teachers’ will also sometimes offer more detailed verbal in a 1 to 1 environment e.g. Feedback Bites

Self and Peer Feedback and Corrections - This type of feedback is carefully selected, pre-planned, and communicated clearly. It is used selectively and when it will best support students' learning. 

Peer and self assessment will be visible in all subjects, students will self-mark/self correct work. Students use green highlighting that work has been peer/self marked. 

Self: Judgement - Self-evaluation using checklist criteria of paragraphs, with teacher guidance and support. 

Marking - Self-checking answers, correcting mistakes from a mark scheme, model exemplar or knowledge organiser, with teacher guidance and support

Peer: Marking - Peer-scoring of spelling, definitions and/or concepts, with teacher guidance and support. 

Evaluation - Peer-evaluation using checklist criteria of paragraphs, with strong teacher guidance. 

Support – Receiving support and feedback from other students- only to be used when the content is appropriate and where the teacher is confident the student has the knowledge and skills to develop and enable progress of those being supported.

Whole Class Feedback
WCF - Providing feedback to the class enables engagement with students’ work, allowing precise, targeted, detailed, formative feedback. 

Feedback on strengths and improvements using a consistent academy template. The left-hand side is used as a way to feedback on the task completed highlighting misconceptions, errors, gaps and praise. The right-hand side is used to feedforward. This addresses what gaps need to be filled, what errors have been made and any misconceptions that have prevented students completing the original task successfully. The original task allows us to diagnose the area of need, MEG and provide feedback and targeted tasks that will allow this to be addressed; improving the student, not the work.

Written Feedback 

There is no expectation to complete written feedback within the academy. If subjects choose to include this form of feedback it should occur no more than 3 times per academic year. Written feedback should only be given if it is purposeful, specific, and time-efficient, and will benefit students above another form of feedback.

WCF should be used to provide timely, detailed, formative feedback. Comparative Judgement is used to provide targeted feedback based on students'  misconceptions/errors/gaps (MEG) using 3 tasks -A, B and C. This means that feedback to students is bespoke and focuses on an improvement of knowledge and understanding rather than just improving a task in isolation. An example from a maths lesson can be seen above. WCF is planned in the curriculum and assessment maps, response time is also built in to give students the opportunity to act on the feedback and make improvements.

Summative Feedback

Maximising the information we receive from summative assessments, and determining our intended actions, is crucial since our curriculum time is limited. It is vital that identified problematic areas are not only retaught but continue to be retrieved since “…restudying improves retention in the short-term, but retrieval practice benefits learning in the long-term (e.g., Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b).”  
Results – Since the impact of marking is reduced once a grade is issued, percentages, marks or grades are not given or released to students until after mock exams have been reviewed. 

Exam paper review – Considering what we know about cognitive overload, learning time is not  used to go through entire exam papers. Teachers provide exam paper/mock feedback through the following ways: 

• QLAs- allow recording and highlighting what marks were awarded for/key information/what to look out for etc. Issue as homework for students to help prepare for the next assessment. 
• WCF of mistakes students are making. Draw attention to those questions where multiple students were making mistakes, drawing out misconceptions and reteaching.
• Identify a small, select number of key areas requiring full reteaching and spend lesson time reteaching and providing shadow questions for students to try.