Marking policies in a significant minority of schools have important weaknesses. For example, some overemphasise the need for a positive response to pupils' work. As a result teachers are sometimes over-generous in their appraisal of the work in a misplaced attempt to motivate the pupils. This can encourage complacency and militate against increasing the sharpness of the pupils' self-evaluation. A further common weakness is that the criteria for the award of grades or marks are often unclear, and pupils become confused between grades for effort and grades for attainment. There is sometimes also a lack of clarity between grades used to indicate absolute attainment and attainment in relation to the capabilities of the pupils; for example in ill-defined distinctions between good attainment for a high achiever and for a lower attainer.
Whatever the quality and detail of marking policies, there are few schools in which marking practice is consistent, even within departments. In the best departments assessment is built into lesson plans in the form of targets for pupils to meet. Marking is then based on these specified targets and on the extent to which pupils have met them. The quality of such marking is generally high, involving a written comment and a mark, and providing additional targets for the next piece of work.
In addition to formal assessment all teachers engage in more informal assessment, through observation, listening to pupils, discussing work with individuals or small groups, and questioning pupils about their developing knowledge and understanding. The quality of teachers' questioning is very variable in the degree to which it extends pupils' thinking, draws out their ideas, and encourages them to volunteer points and explore further, thus providing evidence of achievement. Too often, teachers engage in closed questioning, limiting pupils' responses or even neglecting to take up issues pupils raise, and ultimately failing to register how far they have understood the objectives of the work.
At best, pupils are aware of the assessment objectives and understand how far they have been successful in achieving them. A common misconception among teachers is that pupils marking their own work amounts to self-assessment. In fact, this is often no more than an administrative device to save the teacher's time, and there is frequently little real engagement by the pupils in the process. Occasionally pupils abuse the teachers' trust by cheating.
Among the core subjects, English is the subject in which pupils are most often given good feedback. This is most evident in pupils' writing, where teachers' written and oral comments encourage them to draft and redraft work against clear criteria. English departments often involve pupils in the assessment process. For example, in drafting pieces of writing pupils are provided with assessment criteria against which they can review their own work before and after it is marked. This leads to a self-awareness that greatly assists in setting targets for improvement in future pieces of work.
In mathematics and science it is less common for schools to share with the pupils the assessment criteria. Where it does happen it is most commonly for work in the process attainment targets, Using and Applying Mathematics and Experimental and Investigative Science, though this is not often done before Year 9. In the few schools which collect and retain individual pupils' portfolios of work as an evidence base for end-of-key stage assessment, pupils are helped to understand the assessment criteria applied. Pupils are occasionally involved in the selection of work for this purpose.
More commonly, however, pupils see assessment and marking as a process which is done for them, and to them, and they are not greatly aware of, or involved in, that process. The most common and sometimes quite effective approach to feedback from assessment, particularly in subjects where assessment is mainly through regular tests, is by a post mortem on the pupils' test responses. This is usually conducted with the whole class. Where the pupils' difficulties have been carefully analysed, and the subsequent attention to them is well-focused, this can be a successful approach. Too often, however, pupils are not asked to analyse their own responses to tests in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, such a post mortem may fail to engage the whole class in discussion and some pupils who might benefit most pay little attention.
Even where teachers' comments on work are thorough and point the way to improvement, pupils often do not engage with or respond to them. Corrections are frequently not made. Inadequate work is seldom improved. Even when pupils attempt to respond to comments, teachers do not sufficiently acknowledge this when next marking their books. The full potential of marking to support progress is rarely capitalised upon.
Records of pupils' progress
Recording of pupils' progress has improved but the results are generally under-used. Although some misunderstandings about the purposes of pupil records and of the statutory requirements have been dispelled by the National Curriculum review, much remains to be done to devise practicable and useful records. Prior to the review, there was a common misconception that attainment needed to be recorded against each Statement of Attainment in each Attainment Target for each subject. This led to much ticking of boxes and an unmanageable administrative burden with little educational benefit. Also, many teachers recorded pupils' coverage of the National Curriculum rather than their attainment within it. The National Curriculum review made clear that teachers should use their professional judgement in making rounded end-of-key stage teacher assessments; as a consequence the "tick-box" approaches in most schools have fallen into disuse. However, they have only rarely been replaced by alternative strategies which provide records from which secure judgements can be formed. In many schools these issues have still not been sufficiently addressed across subjects, and in general assessment policies and procedures have not been amended to recognise the new statutory assessment requirements.
Chart 61
5.7 The availability and use of learning resources
There are significant variations between schools in the quantity and quality of resources available to support teaching and learning. At one extreme there are schools where pupils have a wide choice of reference material, easy access to information technology, the use of a range of modern equipment and materials, and books which they can use at home. In contrast, in other schools pupils have to share textbooks, rely on poor-quality photocopied material, have access to a very limited range of sources of reference, have to make do with out-of-date and inadequate technology and do not have books to support homework. Most schools fall somewhere between these two positions but the proportion which have unsatisfactory learning resources is a cause for concern.
Poor levels of resources limit the range and effectiveness of teaching, and in some subjects a lack of books may even prevent the full implementation of the National Curriculum. There are deficiencies of books in almost all subjects. Sometimes books have to be shared in lessons. The lack of resources, particularly in practical subjects, results in a limited range of teaching approaches and a narrow development of pupils' skills. In other subjects pupils sometimes fail to develop satisfactory research skills. Learning resources are frequently not appropriately matched to the age or ability of the pupils, leading to pupils becoming demotivated and producing poorer quality work. A further critical aspect of poor book provision in many schools is that there are insufficient texts to provide pupils with an individual copy which can be used for homework: the lack of adequate resources for homework constrains both the type of homework task that teachers set and the quality of the work that pupils produce.
Chart 62
While inadequate learning resources partly contribute to the observed weaknesses in teaching, learning and standards, it would be wrong to assume that they are the only or necessarily the major cause. It is also the case that poor teaching and poor planning often lead to the poor use of resources. It is therefore simplistic to assume that increasing expenditure on learning resources would by itself ensure improved teaching and standards of work in schools. Low expenditure per pupil on resources is not in itself sufficient to warrant a judgement that learning resources in a school are unsatisfactory. However, schools judged to have unsatisfactory levels of resources more often have standards of attainment and quality of teaching which are below average.
Chart 63
Resources, like teaching, need to be well matched to the ability and skills of pupils. As Chart 64 shows, subject teachers vary enormously in how well they use resources, but a common weakness across subjects is that resources are inaccessible to lower-ability pupils in terms of level of difficulty. In particular the reading demands of many texts used in lessons are beyond the capabilities of at least some of the group. Some departments, in conjunction with special educational needs staff, routinely review the readability of textbooks and worksheets; a few also consider the extent to which pupils with reading difficulties can make use of 'raw' resources, such as the Internet, whose material makes no concessions. Similar consultations sometimes occur about the numeracy and graphicacy demands and general conceptual complexity of learning resources. Less commonly, there is a lack of suitable resources to provide sufficient challenge to support the progress of the more able.
Across a wide range of subjects there is significant overuse of under-challenging, ill-conceived or poorly-presented worksheets. Such a surfeit of worksheets can limit the attainment and progress of pupils of all abilities. On the other hand, good teachers produce worksheets, sometimes of very high quality, to provide their pupils with resources matched as closely as possible to their needs and interests.
In a Year 10 chemistry lesson particularly good use was made of a range of differentiated resources. The teacher first reminded pupils of the particle model of matter and then demonstrated a reaction between gases as they diffused along a tube. This part of the lesson was whole class with pupils responding to directed questions, asking their own questions and being encouraged to explain what was happening in the demonstration. All pupils responded in some way and the teacher adjusted the demand of questions to match pupils' differing levels of understanding, always pressing them to develop their ideas. After an introduction by the teacher, pupils then carried out their own practical work in pairs. Although all pupils attempted very similar experiments the supporting materials were written at three levels with the detail of instruction and depth of questions varying to match pupils capabilities. Homework sheets were similarly differentiated. Pupils were encouraged to use those materials which would enable them to substantially succeed yet be challenged. Excellent negotiation took place during practical work and at the end of the lesson as the teacher decided with pupils which resources they should use. All pupils made good progress.
HMI inspection, 1996
In some schools, teachers are provided with guidance on how to prepare and present worksheets. For example, a geography department carefully considered the characteristics of good worksheets, producing exemplars annotated to bring out detailed features of content, presentation and language level, as well as the extent to which the material would support independent work. The worksheets were intended to supplement, not replace, the main textbook used. SENCOs can play a useful part in monitoring the quality of worksheets used across departments. In one school, for example, checks on readability led to the discovery that text was more accessible when presented in columns rather than across a full page, and this influenced future practice.
Where pupils make use of the new technology, such as information technology, there are many examples of how this can enrich their learning and produce work of a high standard. Equally, new technology is often used for trivial purposes or in ways which offer no extra benefits. This includes extraction of text from electronic sources in a way which is essentially no more than copying; indeed, it is even less worthwhile if the sophisticated tools at their disposal allow pupils to copy text without even reading it and to reassemble it into so-called 'essays' or 'projects' without the need to critically refashion the material to present a personal account or argument. Similarly, while genuine redrafting to improve quality is a valuable activity to which word-processing is ideally suited, copy-typing from a handwritten draft is poor use of time, especially if the pupils lack, as many do, the ability to type at anything approaching a sensible speed.
Productive uses of the new technologies demand essentially the same 'access' skills as other resources: many pupils are adept at the technical manipulation of electronic resources but where their reading is weak, if they are untrained in interpreting graphical messages, or if they do not know how to define clearly the object of their search, then the vastly increased range and immediacy of information available via the Internet or, for example, from an encyclopedia on CD-ROM can use a significant amount of time unproductively. Even so, as shown in 2.5 and 7.8, the new technology has vast potential which a growing minority of teachers are beginning to investigate and exploit.
There is frequent criticism in inspection reports of the limited use made of the resources available to support the teaching. This underuse of available resources may be a result of ineffective planning or the poor management of a central resource, such as the library or information technology equipment. It can also be for logistical reasons, in particular lack of physical accessibility. Most subject lessons are taught in specialist accommodation and, particularly where a department's rooms are suited, access to the appropriate resources is generally unproblematic. However, where a department's rooms are scattered around a large site or on split-site accommodation, problems arise in the sharing of resources and the use of bulkier items. Where non-specialist rooms are used, the range of resources routinely used is generally more restricted. For example, modern foreign languages teachers do not make regular use of the overhead projector, a very important aid in this subject, if they have to transport it from another part of the school. Similarly, it may simply not be possible to take a television/video unit to an outlying room. Too often the teachers most affected by these problems are the least experienced members of the department or non-specialist teachers.
Centrally held resources are used with different degrees of effectiveness by schools. For example, many schools possess IT hardware and software in sufficient quantities for the number of their pupils, but nevertheless, this equipment is frequently underused. If the school library or central IT rooms are to be more efficiently and effectively used, opening hours and booking systems have to be clear, fair and reliable. The school must also recognise and address the implications of pupils' freer movement to and from 'their' classroom and sometimes the need to supervise and support pupils working away from the rest of the class. Teachers are sometimes deterred from using such resources by a general school ethos which inhibits movement during lesson time. Equally, however, teachers need to realise the potential of central resources. Although it can be argued that many libraries have inadequate book stocks, it is also the case that libraries are too often insufficiently used by subject departments to strengthen their curriculum provision or to provide pupils with challenging work calling for information search, retrieval and handling skills. So although there are resourcing problems, the failure to make good use of reading for subject learning stems in the main from inadequate policy and practice.
5.8 Homework
The use of homework is generally one of the weaker aspects of teaching in Key Stages 3 and 4. Although it is well used in over one-third of schools in Key Stage 3, it is poor in one-sixth. There is a little improvement in Key Stage 4, where just over two-fifths of schools use homework well, but use remains poor in nearly one-eighth.
Most schools affirm the importance of homework and many have a clear statement of policy which indicates its use to parents as well as to pupils and teaching staff. Homework generally has the wide support of parents. In those schools where homework is effectively planned to extend learning, it also serves as a significant tool in raising levels of pupils' attainment. However, although there are many examples of schools which strive to make homework an integral part of pupils' learning experience across the whole curriculum, in a large number practice is unacceptably variable among subjects and even within subjects.
The school homework policy typically sets out the aims of homework, indicates the range of appropriate tasks, and sets out responsibilities for monitoring that homework is set, completed and marked. Most subject departments also make similar statements in their departmental handbooks or schemes of work, although these policy statements vary widely in how well conceived and comprehensive they are. Many schools give clear information to teachers, pupils and parents about the approximate time, per subject or per evening, that homework should occupy in successive years. In general, the quantity of homework increases as pupils progress through their secondary education.
In many schools there is great variation, even within departments, in the extent to which the overall school policy on homework genuinely informs practice. A frequent complaint of pupils and parents is that agreed timetables for setting homework are not adhered to. This makes it difficult for pupils to establish regular homework routines and to manage their homework effectively.
Where work in a lesson is closely matched to pupils' ability, the homework which follows tends also to be better matched. Where homework is well used, teachers ensure that it is integrated with, reinforces and capitalises on classwork.
Chart 65
Homework can be a powerful tool in developing independent study habits by promoting research and initiative. It can also help to develop pupils' self-organisation, perseverance and self-discipline. Very practically, homework allows more ground to be covered and enables classwork to concentrate on activities that require the presence of the teacher. Often, however, homework involves simply 'finishing off' work begun in class and frequently fails to stimulate, challenge or extend.
The quality of homework is often limited by the poor resources available. In modern foreign languages, for example, when pupils can not take home a copy of the textbook, worksheet-based written tasks are seldom sufficiently stimulating and, more importantly, pupils lack essential reference sources to elaborate their response or check its accuracy. Vocabulary learning homework is often less challenging when restricted to only those items which pupils have copied out themselves. More broadly, if pupils' reading is to improve more should be done at home, and this requires the availability of attractive and relevant books across the curriculum to support and extend the homework that teachers have set.
When homework is consistently checked by the teacher it tends to have high status with the pupils. Where teachers set good-quality homework and mark it promptly and thoroughly it contributes significantly to pupils' learning. On the other hand, where pupils spend time on homework and it is ignored, or where the teacher's response is inconsistent, motivation and attainment suffer as a consequence.
Homework is significantly better used post-16: use is good in almost two-thirds of schools and poor in very few. For sixth-form students, homework blends with private study within the school day. Arrangements and expectations for private study vary considerably. A minority of schools provide structured programmes and supervision; others only require students to be in school when they are being taught. The effective use of private study depends more on students' attitudes and their ability to work independently of the teacher than on specific arrangements. Sixth-form students are normally set an appropriate amount of work to carry out in their own time. The content is usually suitable, though sometimes the style of working required of students does not directly contribute to the development of their independent study skills. On occasions, activities which require the students to work by themselves in lessons could be more efficiently set for homework.
Many schools check that departments have homework policies, but it is much rarer to find senior managers or heads of department monitoring whether the policies are consistently and adequately implemented. This is done in some schools on a relatively informal basis, for example as part of a periodic review by senior managers of pupils' homework diaries. Ensuring that homework is not only consistently planned, set and followed up, but that its nature and quality are appropriate, requires monitoring by the head of department. Such monitoring is rare. In practice, the monitoring of homework by middle and senior managers is often limited to dealing with pupils referred to them for not completing tasks.
Parents generally express strong support for the principle of homework and great concern when they see it neglected. Schools can, therefore, benefit greatly from parents encouraging and assisting pupils with their homework. Many schools provide homework diaries which parents are asked to sign, usually weekly. This is only effective where it is supported by clear information from the school as to what is expected of the pupil, the time to be spent on the homework and the objectives of the task set. Few schools, however, take full advantage of homework diaries to engage parents in a real dialogue about the work their children are doing. When this happens, well-informed comment by parents provides a valuable form of evidence for schools' monitoring of homework.
In recognition that some pupils have less than ideal conditions in which to work at home and less support and encouragement than they need, an increasing number of schools have set up 'homework clubs'. These provide some or all pupils with the opportunity to do homework on school premises, after the end of normal lessons and/or during the lunch break. The amount of adult support provided during these sessions varies, but overall they have resulted in many teachers giving considerable amounts of their time. Significant numbers of pupils take advantage of these opportunities and there is every indication that they can enable pupils to make more rapid progress with their work.
Pupils with English as an additional language find such sessions particularly beneficial in enabling them to keep up with their peers, to gain access to help in English which may not be available at home, and to reinforce language development in the context of new classwork and homework.
Looking to the future, developments in information and communication technology have the potential to change, substantially and positively, the educational relationship between home and school. Schools and pupils' homes can be linked by Internet or Intranet. Some pupils already have access, outside school hours, to particular interest groups or experts. The exploitation of these new resources is just beginning but individual pupils already demonstrate their potential value in extending the range of their learning and fostering their ability to work independently.
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