The most effective practice I’ve been involved in recently is the implementation of an assessment for a learning tool called ‘Cold Tasks and Hot Tasks’.
A Cold Task is an exercise at the beginning of every unit, or genre in literacy. The children have a go at doing the task – for example, if they’re doing poems they have a go at writing a poem.
They then do all the unit of work and the teacher teaches them how to improve their work. At the end of the unit they do a Hot Task, which is a second go at doing the same piece of work.
What it does is it allows the teacher to be able to build on what the child already knows. Instead of just teaching them all the same thing, the teacher can see if a child can already do some of the task, and can focus their teaching accordingly.
There are great benefits for the child, because they’re really able to see the difference between what they could do before and afterwards.
It’s a great celebration for them, as well as for parents and for us, and it’s also a clear indication of progress for Ofsted.
Abi is a graduate of our Future Leaders programme.
This article originally appeared on the website of the Ambition School Leadership. In March 2019 the Institute for Teaching merged with Ambition School Leadership to form Ambition Institute.
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