Feedback

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) produced a report in 2021 on ‘teacher feedback to improve learning’ in which it is asserted that ‘done well, [teacher feedback] supports pupil progress, building learning, addressing misunderstandings, and thereby closing the gap between where a pupil is and where the teacher wants them to be’ (EEF, 2021, p. 4). The report gathers together a systematic review of the evidence, the expertise of an advisory panel and research on current practice, giving six key recommendations. This metastudy is the framework on which our feedback policy is based.

At this stage it is important to note that we have ‘give and receive feedback’ as one of the ASPIRE learner skills that runs through all that we do at Windsor Academy Trust. It is so important that students are able to act effectively on the feedback they receive and so it is equally important that the feedback they receive has the potential to close the gaps in their learning when they do.

Wiliam, who has contributed much to the development of thinking in this area, particularly developing and enacting the findings of his 1998 article ‘Inside the Black Box’ and contributing to the EEF report by shaping the six recommendations. In his foreword he argues that ‘the starting point for effective feedback is eliciting the right evidence’ (EEF, 2021, p. 5) which is what our summative assessments aim to do and why they are under constant development to achieve this aim.

The report highlights the importance of having effective feedback running through teaching and learning and not a bolt-on that is considered only after the event of an assessment. It has to be authentic to the assessment in using that assessment to move students forward in their learning; ‘the idea is that, after feedback, students will be able to do better at some point in the future on tasks they have not yet attempted’ (EEF, 2021, p. 5). This is a bold but desirable ambition.

The report also recognises the fact that teacher feedback takes time and so there is always an opportunity cost. We seek to get the best impact from the time teachers spend on feedback. In the same way that our assessments are not one-size-fits-all in terms of subject domains and format between year groups, this report acknowledges that teaching is too complex for a set of methods that are guaranteed to succeed. However, what we have got is a clear set of principles underpinning the teacher feedback students receive and we exemplify that with a range of strategies that can achieve this effectively.