Theme: Using Feedback

Within this theme, the following data has been collated: the opportunities students had to use feedback, whether it promoted thinking and improved students’ work. This has been gained from the Year 8 survey, English/Law Survey, Year 10 survey, interviews with students, SLT focus group and the discussion with teachers at the INSET event.

Do you have opportunities to use feedback to improve your work

‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time?

Percent responses n=~152

Subject Written Verbal

Maths 61% 60%

English 68% 67%

Science 40% 40%

Geography 58% 48%

History 55% 49%

French 45% 39%

Technology 38% 42%

Art 56% 53%

Table 14: Year 8 Survey: Student response to ‘Do you have opportunities to use written and verbal feedback to improve your work?’

As seen in Table 14, the data on student views about opportunities to use written and verbal feedback showed similar patterns. They were also similar to responses for the previous questions in the survey. The only two subjects where more than 60% of students stated they had opportunities to use feedback ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time were Maths and English. Students’ views about opportunities to use feedback ‘all’’ or most’ of the time in Science, Technology and French were less positive.

Although the Art students interviewed in July 2016 claimed to prefer written more than verbal feedback (Appendix 9), the Year 8 survey did not show a particular difference in the usefulness of these two forms in Art. However, the survey was undertaken before Katie had made changes in Art, so the difference in their perceptions in the interview

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compared with the Year 8 survey data could be attributed to these improvements. In the Year 10 survey, a high proportion of students stated feedback in Art helped them to think about and improve their work (Table 16). The year 10 survey was undertaken after Katie had incorporated the changes.

In the focus group (Appendix 6), SLT noted that although students said they received feedback through WWW/EBI (Chart 4), the data in Chart 15 suggested they did not necessarily find it useful. The group recognised the school Marking Policy that required teachers to provide feedback in the form of WWW and EBI may not be effective. Using the data in Table 14, SLT concluded this could be because students were not given sufficient opportunities to use feedback. SLT also explained that as part of the feedback process, the Policy required teachers to set a question to which students were expected to respond. On examination of this data, they questioned whether this approach was effective in engaging students in the use of feedback. These issues were discussed with the teachers in the INSET workshops (Appendix 7). The Policy requiring them to set the feedback question was debated. A few teachers explained they re-visited the student responses, but others argued it would take too much time citing timetable constraints and pressure of curriculum content preventing them from doing so. Teachers discussed the type of questions they posed for the students. It emerged in some cases this was a closed question to which students would only need to provide a one-word answer. This was evident in French, Technology and History.

In the first Art interview (Appendix 8), students were asked their views on the questions set by Katie as part of feedback in Art. Both the boys and girls said the question made them think about their work, but some girls expressed concern that they did not always know what the question meant. There was a feeling that the feedback question was not specific enough or linked to the topic, although some students said they felt giving a response gave them the opportunity to be involved and express an opinion about the topic. However, one boy said he did not like giving the response because ‘I don’t like writing, I know I have to write and I have to get better, but I don’t like it. When I have to write a response, I feel rushed and the pressure to write something gets in the way of my thinking, so I just put anything down. I don’t have enough time to think about it properly’.

It was also noted by SLT the feedback practices within Science and within Technology showed a consistently less positive pattern than the other six subjects. SLT believed it was probably due to an under-staffed Science department where a series of supply teachers were being utilised, affecting the continuity of approach and a potentially

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difficult experience for students. They noted there had already been a series of concerns about the Technology department’s performance.

In the DHT interview, Annie explained after the Year 8 survey data had been presented to SLT, the school policy on Marking was changed requiring teachers to set an action to encourage students to use feedback rather than the previous approach to pose a question for them to answer.

An examination of the data from the English/Law survey of student responses about the opportunities to use their feedback can be seen in Table 15 below. This data represents the percentage of students who believed they had opportunities to use written and verbal feedback ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time.

Do you have opportunities to use feedback to improve your work ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time?

Percent responses

Year Group n Written Feedback Verbal Feedback

Year 7 28 75% 68%

Year 8 24 59% 33%

Year 9 23 77% 48%

Year 10 36 74% 56%

Year 10 (Law) 21 81% 57%

Year 11 (Law) 26 65% 57%

Table 15: English/Law Survey: Student responses to I have ‘Opportunities to use feedback’

Year 8 stands out as a having a lower proportion of students who stated they had

opportunities to use feedback, particularly verbal. To explore if this is an issue associated with a year 8 timetable or curriculum, the data from the 2015 Year 8 survey (Table 14) can be used. The responses of the year 8 students for English in that survey does not suggest the data from year 8 in the English/Law survey is associated with an issue with a year 8 curriculum or timetable.

Although the teacher was a constant in this survey, there was still variation across the year groups when exploring opportunities to use written and verbal feedback. When referring to Table 15 above, and to Charts 6 and 9 (section 5.1), it can be seen that students in this survey recognised they received and used written feedback more than they did verbal.

In the Year 10 Survey, the term ‘useful’ was avoided due to the possible confusion of interpretation revealed in the first Art Interview, so it was changed to ‘feedback makes

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me think about my work’. A second question was added to identify whether feedback helped students to improve their work.

Table 16 provides a comparison of the views of students who stated ‘Feedback makes me think about my work ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time and ‘Feedback helps me to improve my work ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time.

Percent responses ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time n=~83

Subject Feedback makes me think

about my work Feedback helps me to improve my work

Maths 48% 53%

English 63% 73%

Science 70% 75%

Geography 75% 87%

History 60% 65%

French 60% 63%

Technology 51% 55%

Art 70% 75%

Table 16: Year 10 Survey: Student response to ‘Feedback makes me think about’ and

‘helps me to improve my work’.

A pattern was seen in all subjects where the proportion of students in year 10 who stated feedback was easy to understand ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time (Table 12: section 5.2) was similar to those who stated feedback made them think about their work ‘all’ or

‘most’ of the time (Table 16). For subjects where students stated the feedback made them think about their work often, there was also a high proportion of responses from students stating it helped them to improve their work.

In this theme, it has been established that students appeared to have differing

opportunities to use feedback. Opportunities to use written feedback were believed to occur more than opportunities to use verbal feedback in the English/Law survey. For other subjects, opportunities to use both forms of feedback tended to be similar. The school Marking Policy was questioned by SLT as it did not necessarily appear to result in students’ engagement with feedback. The process of setting a question by the teacher was not seen to be effective in enabling or encouraging students to use feedback. In the Year 10 survey, it was apparent that when feedback encouraged students to think about their work, it was more likely to help them improve.