Developing and Embedding Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities
Rubrics
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A rubric is a tool, similar to a mark scheme, which you can use to support assessment. It sets out the range of qualities seen across work, from unacceptable to excellent.
The rubric expands on success criteria by detailing what performances will look like along a continuum. These are typically ranked from beginner to expert, although you can choose any names suitable to the task.
The class taking the assessment follows the rubric as they plan and complete their work. The rubric gives them better understanding of what their work should demonstrate to succeed.
As pupils use rubrics to gauge the quality of their work, they are introduced to the standards that apply in the subject they are studying.
By sharing what's expected, rubrics help pupils to make judgements about their work both in progress and as a completed piece.
Drafting a rubric means anticipating what you want your pupils to be able to do, and so helps with planning and formative assessment.
Using Rubrics to Assess TS&PCs
These downloadable materials have three sections:
- General Material on Rubrics
- Rubrics and the TS&PCs and
- Rubrics for the Strands of the TS&PCs Framework
Rubrics for the strands are general. They are also provided in simpler language for pupils.
Drawing up a rubric that includes criteria on TS&PCs that lessons have focused on can be an effective way to gather information about your pupils' progress. As you observe pupil performances, you can use a rubric as a quick checklist to monitor their work and gauge individual progress. As well as providing important formative feedback, these observations can inform your assessment and reporting of pupil progress in terms of the TS&PCs and subject learning.
The materials available to download review the general principles of using rubrics and suggest ways you can apply these when assessing the TS&PCs. You can access a pre-recorded webinar on rubrics from the Webinars section of this web area.
Downloads
These resources help you to plan using rubrics effectively with your classes:
1. General Material on Rubrics
This presentation is a general overview of rubrics as an assessment tool. It summarises the main points about rubrics and their pros and cons, including examples of drawing up rubrics. You can use it to raise issues and explore considerations, for example as part of a school development planning activity on assessment.
2. Rubrics and TS&PCs
This document outlines using rubrics to plan for and carry out assessment of pupils' progress in the TS&PCs. You can use it in conjunction with the other materials available to download.
3. Rubrics for the Strands of the TS&PCs Framework
These documents follow from the text on progression in the back of the guidance booklets
for TS&PCs at Key Stage 1 and 2 and Key Stage 3. The statements for each strand are expanded to demonstrate a typical progression that could be seen as a pupil develops skill in that particular strand. These rubrics are templates that set out the type of skills development to plan for. You should not use the rubrics as a checklist to assess TS&PCs. They form the basis for developing your own customised rubrics that document expected progression the aspect of TS&PCs you are targeting during a sequence of lessons. Typically, this skill will help pupils demonstrate increasing independence in mastering subject content. For example, a pupil will show increasing discernment when choosing relevant facts to include in an assignment.
TS&PCs Rubrics in Pupil Language
Compare these versions of the TS&PCs rubrics with those above, which set out the progression to look for in pupil performances in general terms. As you draft your own rubrics for specific skills, you can adapt the pupil versions to show the progression in skills development that you expect the activity to provide. Key Stage 3 teachers could refer to the Progression Maps for their subject as they draft text for an assessment rubric.
Assessment in the TS&PCs is evaluative and diagnostic. The progress that a pupil makes may not be linear. Although the example rubrics cover all of the points from the TS&PCs framework, you should concentrate on only one aspect for any particular learning activity.