Assess the Progress Check System at Wycombe High School

Assess the Progress Check System at Wycombe High School Jack Rushton, Subject Leader History and Politics

Introduction The current Progress Check (PC) system at WHS has become a significant part of school life. Students should receive 4/5 separate progress checks a year plus 5/6 Personal Mentoring (PM) sessions with their form tutor; PCs should form part of these discussions. Both PCs and PM meetings should also be regularly recorded in student planners.

Subject tracking sheets that make use of target grades are also being used more. What then, is the actual quantifiable effect of these progress checks on the students at WHS? Furthermore how does the PC system relate to the current pedagogy, with regards to AFL and the current thinking about the psychological make-up of female adolescents?

Research In order to discover the effect of the Progress Check on students, 175 students in Y10 and 176 students in Y12 conducted a survey where they were asked to score the Progress Check and Target Grade system marks between +3 and -3 for how accurate they were, how often they discussed them with parents or form tutors and how motivating they found them. I then cross reference responses, for example to discover how motivating the progress checks are for students who rarely discuss their progress checks with their form tutors, or how motivating students find their target grades if they also felt they were accurate.

Findings The findings were clear: 

Generally the PC system has a positive effect on students; 57% of Y10 students

and 65% of Y12 students found their Progress Checks motivating to some extent. 

The more the students discuss their progress checks the more effective they are in motivating students. This is particularly true for Y12. However students do not discuss them more than once a year with parents in 22% of cases or with tutors in 26%.

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A significant minority of students feel their target grades were very or totally inaccurate (18% in Y10, 21% in Y12), 75% of these students found their target grades demotivating.

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A significant minority 19% of Y12 and 22% of Y10 found the Progress Checks to be very demotivating; they gave it -2 or -3.

I pursued these issues with 2 focus groups based on a random sample of students from Y10 and Y12.

The overwhelming sense from both focus groups was that students felt that the target grades would be more effective if the students had some input into them. Students in Y10 often felt that their target grades were too high and this resulted in an unpleasant level of pressure. Y12 students conversely felt that the target grades were too low and did not reflect their ambition or ability. Furthermore because they have no input into the target grades, this encourages them to see the targets as something external to them, that they have no ownership of and therefore reject.

The Y12 focus group was significantly more reflective and philosophical about the whole process than Y10. This reflected a very different relationship between Y10 students and the 11 subjects they study (most of which

they did not choose) compared to that between an AS student and the 4 subjects they choose to study. As a result the relationship with their Target Grades and PCs are very different. The PC would perhaps be more effective if it were modified to take advantage of these differences.

AFL AFL is the process by which learners understand: where they are in their learning; where they need to go; and how best to get there.

And at first glance the PC system’s working-at grade and target grade would seem to do this.

And the use of the ‘progress grade’ then allows students to be rewarded for progress rather than achievement. However this very simplistic form of communication does not give the student any information on how to make the jump from working at to target grade. In fact as shown from studies by Ruth Butler and Chris Black, the use of grades in feedback EVEN IF accompanied by qualitative feedback is actually detrimental to progress.

Furthermore the progress grade is strictly related to the Target Grade. As such it is not really a measure of how much progress has been made as much as it is a measure of how much progress there is still to do, again with no indication as to how this would be achieved. In both cases more sophisticated formative feedback would be far more preferable from an AFL perspective.

system and amygdala. As a result girls tend to react emotionally, and that this emotional reaction can override a rational response, and actually prevent learning and progress. This is borne out by the survey and focus groups which clearly show older more adult students responding more positively to the PC system.

Formative feedback rather than simplistic, sometimes norm referenced, summative feedback would avoid triggering negative emotional responses.

Dwek argues that if schools develop a culture of praising achievement only, they create fixed mind-sets.

“Why did you get a 3 in History?”

“Because I’m not very good at History.” is a common exchange between teacher and student. Again a more sophisticated set of responses would encourage effort and a culture of ‘medals and missions’ rather than one of comparing oneself with others.

Recommendations 

Involve students in the generation of target grades to encourage them to take ownership of them and to increase accuracy and relevance

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Retrain staff in the use of PM and the importance of it as part of the Progress Check system.

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Emphasise the importance of students discussing the PC system with Parents, through Parents information evenings and assemblies.

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Redesign the Progress and Commitment grades to prevent them being norm referenced and encouraging fixed mindsets, and to enable them to promote: effort, and risk-taking; a mission-andmedal culture; and to take account of the separate learning curves in different subjects

Psychology of Teenage Girls Joann Deak and Carol Dwek are two academics that have done some of the most significant work on the psychology of female adolescents over the last 20 years. Deak has written that the female adolescent mind is physiologically different from an adult or male adolescent brain. It is governed by the limbic