Formative Assessment and Effective Feedback

Assessment shapes what students learn and how they feel about school. This course focuses on formative assessment: gathering evidence during learning and using it to adapt teaching. You will practise techniques such as questioning strategies, exit tickets, success criteria, peer and self-assessment and feedback that students actually use. We also look at digital assessment tools, at reducing teacher workload and at aligning formative practice with national grading requirements. Participants analyse their own assessment tasks and redesign one of them during the week. Suitable for teachers of all subjects and levels, and for school leaders responsible for assessment policy.

Participants will be able to design success criteria and formative checkpoints for a unit, give feedback that moves learning forward, use peer and self-assessment routines, and select digital tools for quick evidence gathering, while keeping their workload sustainable.

Methods: workshops, analysis of real student work and assessment tasks, modelling of techniques by trainers, digital tool try-outs, redesign of a participant's own assessment task. Assessment: peer review of the redesigned task using shared criteria, daily quick checks (the techniques we teach), final presentation and self-assessment.

Course handbook, technique cards, rubric and success-criteria templates, sample student work, access to digital tools (Socrative, Wooclap, Google Forms), reading list. Participants bring one of their own assessment tasks.

25 hours of training, course materials, certificate of attendance, Europass Mobility and Learning Agreement support, welcome get-together, guided walking tour of Florence, coffee breaks, pre-departure info pack.