I’ve heard many science teachers complaining about APP.  True it is yet another new initiative and true its effectiveness has yet to be determined, but it does have the potential to improve Science assessment across our schools.

Why APP?

• Provide a clear assessment system linked to the new framework/KS3 curriculum
• Students should know where they are and where they are going (Assessment for Learning)
• Teachers can plan for progression and know how a student is doing
• Schools can confidently track attainment of groups of pupils
• APP is not about assessing pupils and doing nothing with the data.  APP is not intended to be a summative assessment tool.

Remember APP is not statutory.  You can’t do it wrong – whatever works for you is fine.

I used to use the PIVATS assessment criteria for assessing the How Science Works strand, but had increasingly found it a poor match for the new science framework.  This meant that I had to give APP a good try.

How I implemented APP with my students
I took the APP threads which had been created by Eastwood School and I added some level 1 & 2 statements from the draft copy of the Primary Science APP.  (Eastwood school broke the APP strands into sub-strands or threads which make it easier to see the progression between levels)

I decided to create discrete APP activities to use in class.  This seemed a much easier way to collect data than flicking through pupils’ books with an APP chart next to me.  It also provided a meaningful way for pupils to see the progression between levels.  I follow (loosely) the ASE’s Wikid scheme of work which has a strong how science works theme (since it was written to reflect the release version of the Science framework).  Wikid science is full of opportunities to create APP activities (I’ve uploaded some of my APP activities – follow the teaching resources link at the top of the page).

My students (as special school pupils) tend to have lower than average literacy/numeracy levels and so activities need to provide a way for students to express their science skills without being held back.

Pitfalls of the APP system (compared to what we had before).
APP does not measure sub-levels.  Statements within a level are not intended to be hierarchical but not all the statements within a level are of equal challenge.  I score pupils as a weak, straight or strong level which gives three sub-levels, averaging these scores gives a wider range of sub-levels.

I also created a level ladder (replacing PIVATS statements with APP criteria of comparable difficulty) to use when marking books, and to display on the wall.  I intended this to support our school policy of target setting for pupil IEPs.  I’m not sure how useful this is yet, but I’ve uploaded it to my resources site.

Assessment at KS4. The expectation is that students are assessed using examination criteria at KS4. How well this works depends on the course you are running.   Modular science courses (we’ve run Entry Level, BTEC Introductory and GCSE) provide feedback to students as end of unit marks, but it’s easy to lose track of progression, especially for pupils who make small steps of progress.

Any science APP only records progress against a narrow range of criteria. How do you record a pupil who suddenly answers questions in class, or a student who might independently have started collecting their own equipment.  Special schools tend to focus on life skills and social skills within all curriculum areas.

What about the other three attainment targets for Science?  We currently have no idea of how we will be expected to report in 2011, and what the weightings for the attainment targets will be.  I would expect there to be a significant weighting to the how science works skills giving the investment in APP, but there is still likely to be variation in quality of assessment of the range and content.  Current advice is to continue assessing range and content in the same way you have always done since you will be expected to report back on these at the end of the key stage.

Where next?
I came up with the idea of developing a feel for each level, characterised by the key words and phrases from each level.  To create this idea of ‘levelness’ I used the Wordle Site and entered APP criteria to create a Wordle for each national curriculum level.  If nothing else they look good displayed on the wall!

Summary of current assessment practice @ KS3

• APP task for each  topic (with a need to improve the quality of tasks for pupils performing below level 3)
• Level ladder to be used to set targets for students’ IEPs in line with whole school policy.
• PIVATS document used alongside for target setting and tracking purposes for range and content.  Some end of unit tests (from Testbase) and level assessed tasks used to support teacher assessment.
• Optional SATs for Y9 pupils to verify teacher assessment

How does this compare to your school?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Click on the APP tag to the right to read my other posts about APP

Remember my layout was based on teaching science to pupils who have special educational needs, within an 11-19 special school.  My needs (and therefore solutions) may not be the same as for a mainstream science lab.

I eventually went with a more traditional layout of a lab with rows where I could see all the pupils doing practical work.  I’ve listed some of the considerations to think about if you are going through the lab refit process.

This is the photo album showing the new lab all finished.  Click on a picture to see it in more detail.

Points to consider (with the benefit of hindsight)

• How are you going to use your lab – where will gas, electricity and interactive whiteboard wiring run?  This will influence your final design.
• Make sure you agree as much as possible in writing – especially where fittings are to be removed and replaced after the refit.  This ensures that they will be looked after properly during the process.  Get contact number and email address of the person who will be project managing, and make sure they have yours.
• Check with other schools that have used the company and supplier of furniture.  The company who did our refit were very willing but ESA McIntosh was unable to meet the agreed delivery dates.  This meant we had a stripped and empty room which was out of use for two and a half weeks of term time.
• When the work is finished, check carefully and document in writing any defects or things you need putting right.  Have an experienced eye check over again (e.g. site manager)

What could have gone better?

• My blinds were creased and soiled during storage.  Fortunately they cleaned up reasonably well and a good steaming made most of the creases drop out.  Steam is also handy for removing labels and stickers stuck to walls and desks!
• The layout makes access to the sink difficult, students don’t seem to have realised that we have two sinks and all flock to the same sink.  Pupils need directing to sinks to stop traffic jams.
• Mobile furniture gives some flexibility.  I didn’t go for service islands because of the expense of laying conduits in the floor, and I didn’t want my gas taps round the edge of the room (so pupils work with their backs to you).
• White walls, ceiling and black floor makes a small room seem bigger.
• Neutral colours work better than strong colours like red, which some pupils don’t find as comfortable to work in.  They also make the lab feel more spacious.
• Organised storage – Pupils like to know where everything is, and that equipment is arranged so that the most commonly used pieces of apparatus are the easiest to access.  This may sound like common sense but it took a few reorganisations before we hit on a way of storing equipment that minimised traffic jams and students squeezing past each other.
• Check the dimensions of store cupboards.  Mine are deep enough for standard folders (not lever arch files) but only the bottom shelf is tall enough for ring binders, with folders having to be stored horizontally on top shelves.
• Make sure all cupboards are locked with a master key (I had 14 similar individual keys for my small lab, telling them apart is difficult).
• Check that you have sufficient drawers to store all your glass-wear, check the cabinet descriptions (in my case a drawer unit was a cupboard with a drawer on top, not a unit full of drawers).
• Stools – try and get stools that don’t make holes in the floor.  There are stools on the market that rest on a bar rather than individual feet.  This removes the problem of stools with lost or worn feet making holes in the floor covering when students swing on them.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about our refit.

I’ve been pretty amazed at the number of people (presumably teachers and teaching assistants) who have found my resources online.  I’m getting 20 to 40 hits a day which I was quite pleased with.  In the three weeks since I uploaded the BTEC Science resources, 230 people have followed the link from the TES site and the BTEC resources have had 800 page views (according to Google Analytics).

I attribute the popularity of these resources to the price (FREE!) and the fact that there are very few BTEC Science resources on the market despite the spiralling popularity of the course.  My head told me I ought to sell my resources commercially through a publisher, but that means polishing them further, and filling them out to cover more topics.  Having seen the dubious quality of many published SEN resources from authors who seem to have done just that I didn’t want to go down that route.  All of my resources were created to use with specific classes and not for cash.

After completing my NPQH I returned to the classroom as an AST because of my passion for science teaching and ensuring students have the best possible science education.  If giving my resources away means more teachers using them in their classrooms and enhancing the science education of their students then that is reward enough.  Ultimately I want to see teachers taking my ideas and techniques and using them with their own pupils to improve science provision for all.

That is why I give my science resources away!

(And that’s why I like to hear from people who use them!  If you use my resources in your science lessons, leave a comment below and let me know what you think of them!)

(Stock photo from the TTS site)

(Actual unit)

I bought one of these a while ago to try it out (I chose a black one because it seemed more age-appropriate to my pupils than a yellow one).  I haven’t used it much because on the occasions I got it out, pupils were self conscious and refused to use it.  I’d tried having pupils record notes, results and other work during experiments without success.

This week I had my year 11 GCSE group revising work on drugs.  I gave them a series of letters from a range of addicts, and they had the role of Agony Aunt Mavis, to write scientific answers (including facts on addiction) to these problems.

Pupils rose well to the challenge and created some excellent responses.  I asked them to use the voice recorder to record their letters – and we got an opportunity to use this hardware properly.

Pupils found the Easi-speak easy to use, being able to record and play back conversations independently.  The only problem we ran into was the delay between pressing the record button and the unit starting recording.  This meant that one of the groups kept missing the start of their work, even though they were told to wait for the flashing light (stand-by) to change to a red light (recording).

Extracting the recordings was easy, plug the Easi-speak into a PC and wait until drivers are installed (built into XP, Vista and Windows 7).  Then the computer sees the Easi-speak in the same way that it would a USB flash drive, simply drag and drop the files off.

We used Windows Movie Maker to add the audio files to some still images (matching the ones on the worksheet), put titles and credits on and the film was finished ready to go on the school TV system.

I was pleased with the ease of use of the Easi-speak, and the files it created were in a format that can be used by a wide range of software.  Although a little pricier than some voice recorders, I can recommend this product for use with children with SEN (assuming you can get them to speak!)