The Importance of Formative Assessment

A lot of focus on kind of classroom techniques is based around formative assessment, check for understanding. But it's what understanding are you checking for that feels quite a complex skill, isn't it, for a teacher to get right? And there's one thing that I say to staff increasingly now, especially when I notice that they are more inclined to do this: Don't ask any questions unless it's about the very specific thing that you're teaching. So if you're teaching expanding brackets, for instance, I don't want you to ask any questions Unless it's one actually about the expansion of that bracket and everything else, you've just got to say it.