Embedding Formative Assessment Toolkit

Building on over twenty years of research, this resource has been written by Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy to support schools that wish to improve student learning through their teachers’ consistent use of formative assessment in classrooms. Improving teaching and learning is not an easy or quick process. We recommend that schools prioritise formative assessment for at least two years if they hope to see the improvements that have been found in the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) research trial. Students in the Embedding Formative Assessment schools made the equivalent of two additional months’ progress in their Attainment 8 GCSE score, using the standard EEF conversion from pupil scores to months progress. This result has a very high security rating.

A Teacher Learning Community (TLC) consists of a group of teachers who meet together regularly to improve teaching and learning, and this puts the responsibility onto the teachers for supporting each other as a group.

This resource contains:

Year 1 – Materials to support 8 monthly workshops of 75 minutes each. All TLC materials are suitable for cross-phase use.
Year 2 – Materials to support 8 monthly workshops of 75 minutes each plus an additional optional workshop. All TLC materials are suitable for cross-phase use.

Each workshop from workshop two follows the same pattern:

• Introduction including the learning intentions for the workshop
• a starter activity
• feedback from all teachers on the techniques that they have attempted since the last workshop
• formative assessment content
• action planning
• summary.

During each workshop teachers are expected to feed back how their use of techniques has worked over the past month and also to plan what techniques they intend to use before the next workshop.

Supporting materials include templates, recordings, and case studies.

Please make sure you have downloaded all resources from the website and save these in an appropriate area of your schools IT network that the EFA administrator and TLC leaders can access.

It is useful to have an administrator who understands the professional development pack and can produce a pack for each workshop leader a week before each workshop.