Chapter 2 - The Spirit of Formative

Assessment in the Learning Culture of the

School and Classroom
We are all familiar with many aspects of Formative Assessment such as Learning
Objectives, success criteria and feedback. This chapter outlines how the true spirit
of Formative Assessment is harder to define, as the true Learning Culture that a
teacher establishes with their class is the key to success for any child in the
classroom. The bricks that formative assessment are based upon are an empowering,
dynamic learning environment maximising student self-belief and students knowing how
to use their learning skills.
Shirley Clarke believes both teachers and children are sensitive learners and that
there are three main aspects to creating a positive learning culture in a school these
being:

Developing growth mindsets

- Successful learners have a growth mindset;
- Comparative rewards reinforce a fixed mindset;
- Praise needs to focus on effort and achievement, not ability;
- Student/teacher relationships are key to pupil success.
Children integrating meta-cognition strategies where they guide, regulate and
evaluate their own learning
- Characters for each power, especially those chosen by children make the

concepts more accessible. Children take more ownership of it.

Having mixed ability learning with differentiated choices
- Mixed ability learning is more inclusive;
- Seating arrangement can obstruct collaborative learning;
- Different talk partners which change often make mixed ability work;
- Many teachers offer children a range of differentiated challenges in maths.

An ideal learning culture needs honest discussion, reference to evidence and

cooperative planning and development. Continually talking to students about how the
brain grows, how you can grow your abilities through practice, the gift of being able to
learn from one another utilising all of our different strengths as we are all born with
different strengths. Shirley Clarke believes children do not need rewards when the
culture is focussed around all children competing against themselves and their own
previous achievement stickers seem somewhat tokenistic.

Fixed Mindset: The belief that people are born with a certain amount of intelligence
and that is fixed. I MUST LOOK CLEVER Likely to plateau early and achieve less
than full potential. A fixed mindset is a continual focus on ability rather than
achievement and effort. People avoid challenging tasks for fear of failure therefore
missing many valuable learning opportunities.
Growth Mindset: The belief that intelligence is not fixed and that you can grow your
intelligence. I WANT TO LEARN MORE Reaches ever-higher levels of achievement.
People embrace challenges, risk-take, persevere even when things are challenging, learn
from criticism. Children understand that in order to learn they must be brave and
make mistakes and this allows them to tackle challenges they wouldnt have attempted
before.
Shirley Clarke urges teachers to use the terms lower achievers and higher achievers
which implies at this moment. With varying amounts of time, effort, practice and
input, we are all capable of reaching a given level of proficiency.
According to John White (2005), Putting children into boxes that have not been
proved to exist may end up restricting the education that they receive, leading
teachers to overly rigid views of individual pupils potentialities and what is worse, a
new type of stereotyping. Basically what he is stating is that deciding the best
learning style for a learner and channelling them in that direction restricts
opportunities.

Making Mindsets Available

Teachers gave examples of how they introduced the idea of Growth Mindset to their
own classes.

Giraffes Cant Dance Discussing how he felt useless and how he moved on to

help himself.
Teacher wrote a story and the main character got the better of his negative

fixed mindset by adding the word YET to his though.

Teachers using YET on posters to encourage children to respond to something

they dont know or cant doYET.

Role playing Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset
Introducing a Learning Journey for the children to convey thoughts at the end
of lessons.

Shirley Clarke raised the idea that perhaps the most significant aspect for the teacher
in developing a growth mindset culture is to praise children based on achievement and
effort.

Examples of encouragement language used successfully by teachers:

Well done - Youre learning to (implies learning is not a job to be done and

finished with).
Good its making you think thats how you know your brain is growing.
Youre good at things you like because you spend a lot of time doing them.
You skills have really improved. Do you remember how much harder this was last

week and last year?

You kept going well done!
Dont say no have a go!
You mean you dont know YET!

Some schools have changed their I can statements into I am learning to or even I
am beginning to
Creating a Whole-school growth mindset culture is vital as children need to see
teachers modelling our own growth mindsets. A Head Teacher announces which musical
instrument they are going to learn at the beginning of the year and demonstrates
progress often to show children they themselves are going through the learning
process. Really important for children to understand that the vision for everyone in a
school is the same. Using scenarios with young children to establish whether they have
a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset was suggested (page 27).

Integrating Meta-Cognition - Learning Powers

The Growth Mindset gives children the appropriate attitude and self-belief but metacognition gives them the tools to be able to talk about and understand their learning,
giving them a shared language and understanding.
Three well-known educationists came together and condensed their ideas down into one
ideal list of learning powers Guy Claxtons learning Dispositions, Art Costas Habits of
Mind and Chris Quigleys Secret of Success. The categories for the final list were:

Concentrate ( Manage distractions, breaking things down, planning)

Dont give up (Keep going, try new strategies, ask for help)
Be cooperative (listen to others, say when you dont understand, explain things

to help others)
Be curious (Ask questions, think of possible reasons, ask What if?
Have a go (Have a growth mindset, learn from mistakes, be excited to try new

things)
Use your imagination (Be creative, let your imagination go)
Keep improving (keep reviewing your work, try to be better than last time)
Enjoy learning (Feel proud of all your achievements, use what you have learnt in
real life).

Thought this section was a really good read as it clearly shows the difference a
person with a Growth Mindset has compared to a Fixed Mindset. We as
teachers often talk about how our children dont risk take and stick in their
comfort zones. Really pointed out to me how important giving children the self
belief that anything and everything is possible.
Using characters or creatures to show various learning dispositions without a story is a
common strategy in many schools. Eg Sensible Squirrel is a resourceful questioner,
Team Ant are team players, Dont give up Deema Duck, Be cooperative Tim and Tina
Tortoises, Concentrate Kuba caterpillar.
Mixed Ability Learning
The section concluded that ability grouping has a direct impact on childrens mindset.
When children are grouped by ability, it is thought that expectations tend to be fixed
and childrens achievement is mated to those expectations. Should children be given
the opportunity to explore higher-level learning, they often surpass previous
expectations including that of their teacher.
According to Ed Baines (2012), Greater use should be made of peer co-learning, since
these approaches can enhance the learning of all pupils.
Talk partners make mixed-ability teaching and learning fall into place if children have a
rich experience of different talking partners (utilising different strengths from
different children).

Chapter 2 was a great read with some very good examples of how teachers can
implement the idea of Growth Mindset into their classes and get children having the
self-belief that they may not know something yet, but with persistence and a desire to
want to challenge themselves and risk take, anything is possible and any expectations
can be surpassed.

(Apologies for 4 pages of notes but was the best I could do as there was a lot of
reading)!