Good Practice - Case Study

Oakwood Primary School

School No: 434

Science

Sarah makes a ‘big book’ with her Year 2 children, in which they illustrate the stages of a scientific investigation.

The book can then be used as an ‘aide memoire’ by the children when they are carrying out other investigations.

The idea is similar to sharing success criteria with children as promoted in Shirley Clarke’s work.

Even though the ‘big books’ that Sarah makes are of high quality – there is still evidence of how the children have improved their ideas. Sarah takes one aspect of science ( e.g. commenting about results ) and through a written question helps each child improve on their work. You can see the child’s improvements following the teacher’s question. This gives a clear message that assessment is about improving, not measuring and that time is given to make that improvement.