18/1/2010

Ref: PP-DPS

Teachers at Dosthill Primary School are using the latest interactive markbook technology from Classroom Monitor to keep an ongoing record of their students’ progress and adhere to the Government’s Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP) programme; the periodic assessment of maths, reading and writing. Accessible anytime, anywhere with an internet connection, the software enables staff to update and refer to pupils data quickly and easily.  Tony Hand, Headteacher at the school, discusses the benefits of migrating assessment online and future plans the school has for this technology. 

Dostill Primary School is a large county primary school catering for 650 three to 11 year-olds in Tamworth, Staffordshire.  Tony Hand has been Headteacher for over five years and sees the school as offering the foundations of an education for life, enabling every pupil to develop as independent, confident, effective and responsible learners through the provision of an enriched and enjoyable curriculum. As part of this delivery, reporting and assessment is high on the agenda as the school works towards achieving the Government’s APP practice in the classroom. In a bid to make the process as smooth and stress-free as possible for teachers, the school has implemented the latest online markbook technology from Prime Principle; Classroom Monitor.

Already using tracking and reporting tools to record pupil’s progress, Dosthill Primary required technology that would remove the burden of report writing and further give teachers, subject leaders and the school leadership team, a clear overview of pupils’ progress on both an individual and class basis. Tony comments: “Previously, we used separate tracking and reporting tools to carry out assessment, however, both of these lacked important functionalities and became time-consuming to use. Our tracking tool, for example, was useful for recording ongoing data. However, in order to produce a report on a pupil, staff had to take lengthy steps including exporting the data to excel before they could use it. Similarly, our reporting software had a very limited bank of statements for teachers to link to the levels pupils were achieving and also required data to be transferred from the tracking tool, which risked us losing or re-writing over important information. Staff ended up using the software simply as a template which we could have created in Word. We were looking for a solution which combined both tracking and reporting in a simple, user-friendly program so data was kept in one place.” The school investigated different programs and decided to implement Classroom Monitor in September 2009.

Personalised assessment

As early adopters of APP, teachers at Dosthill were keen to use a program which would allow them to input personal comments and evidence to support their pupils’ progress. Classroom Monitor allows teachers to log as and when pupils meet certain competencies using a simple ‘traffic light’ system to input assessment information. ‘Red’ represents an objective to target, ‘amber’ for almost met and ‘green’ when a pupil meets a target. Further to this, teachers can personalise the markbook for each student by adding comments and highlighting any issues linked to specific lesson topics where applicable. Tony comments: “At Dosthill we believe it is important as part of APP that teachers record descriptions of how each child has achieved a certain level or target. Classroom Monitor does not limit teachers to simply ticking boxes; it allows them to build a much bigger picture of a child’s development, enabling us to refer to specific examples of work when setting new objectives or speaking to parents or carers.”

Anytime, anywhere access

As with every school, staff at Dosthill were dedicating tremendous amounts of time to the ongoing assessment of pupils. As Headteacher, Tony was keen to reduce the time it took to record this information and also provide teachers with the flexibility to access and update reports as part of their Planning, Preparation and Assessment time at home. As Classroom Monitor is based online, school staff can access data 24/7, anywhere with an internet connection. Tony comments: “The software provides teachers and senior management with the freedom to complete reports at a time and location that suits them.”
 
Teachers and senior level staff not only need access to student’s progress on an ad-hoc basis, but also need a place to centrally store all this data to be used to develop each pupil’s end of year report which can be drilled down into or reviewed against fellow classmates to gauge development against their peers. Tony enthuses: “Now we have Classroom Monitor, I no longer have to spend a week of my summer holidays crunching data, or sit at my school desk in the evening trawling through piles of paper – I now simply log on at home to produce my reports at the click of a button. It allows me and my staff to keep assessment data updated regularly and fit it in around our lives.”

Personalisation

Teachers at Dosthill have been using Classroom Monitor as a way to further personalise learning, dividing their classes into different groups, for example, by learning style, level, looked-after pupils and those identified as having special educational needs. The tool quickly provides them with a snapshot of each group’s progress and the ability to compare them to identify areas of development to focus on. Tony comments: “Never before have we been able to compare specific groups of children so quickly. This helps us to intervene and adapt teaching strategies early to ensure that every child is on the right track to achieve their full potential.”

Parental engagement

At Dosthill staff believe that the partnership between parents and school is vital and they actively encourage parents to be involved in their child’s learning in school. Classroom Monitor is helping teachers to engage with parents by providing a personalised and easy to understand overview of their child’s development. Tony, comments: “Traditionally we sent out an interim report in January each year to parents but in the past all we were able to provide were the levels each child had achieved. With Classroom Monitor we can print both the levels and personalised comments from their teacher so parents can quickly and easily see what their child has actually completed. This also helps to reassure parents that their child is being taught as an individual and is not just a number. We plan to use the software for our next parents’ evening in February so we can talk through each pupil’s development in detail and help parents understand how to support their child further.”

Having attainment data on every child at his fingertips enables Tony and other senior management to prepare at short notice for a meeting with a parent or other professionals. This means that a pupil’s teacher does not need to be available and provides Tony with meaningful data which he can talk through at a moment’s notice. Tony comments: “It is incredibly important as a Headteacher that I am prepared when speaking with parents, carers or other professionals and that I can cite specific examples of how a pupil is progressing. Being able to access this information online saves a lot of time as I don’t have to ring back or reorganise meetings.”

Staff development

To ensure that Classroom Monitor achieves its full potential for the school it has been built into the school’s development plan and fed into performance management and staff targets. Staff have been provided with training from the team at Classroom Monitor and time to get to grips with the software. Teacher ambassadors for the technology have also been identified to provide ongoing support. Tony comments: “In order to get the best from any technology we believe it is important that staff have its use built into their continued professional development and day-to-day role. Identifying ICT advocates within teaching staff has helped immensely as other staff members always have someone to turn to if they have an issue.”

The future

Staff at Dosthill have many plans for Classroom Monitor in 2010 including using it to identify smarter layered targets for reading, writing or numeracy which are class and year-group based rather than whole-school based as they are currently.  The school hopes to better differentiate the targets dependent on age and ability based upon Classroom Monitor data.

The school also plans to use Classroom Monitor to better inform Individual Education Plans for those children being monitored for special needs. Tony comments: “One of the challenges schools can experience when setting Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for SEN children is devising targets which they can work towards in their day-to-day learning, particularly if they don’t receive one-to-one support. We plan to use APP data to generate IEP targets which will better link into everyday activities that SEN children are doing in the classroom which will then be picked up and assessed using Classroom Monitor.”
 
The school plans to try out the software to support the transition from reception to Year 1. They will record each child’s Early Learning Goals so as they move up into Year 1, staff can access these and feed them into new targets.

back to news »