more afl than summative

From nick boddington pshe lead of pshe association
I do have a few other before and after techniques I use. If I want to demonstrate the enrichment of a complex concept (this one kept two of us up for hours until we had a brainwave) - so for example 'bullying' (you could use anything - 'health' even very complex concepts like 'prejudice' or 'bigotry') ask the class to imagine an alien has arrived from another planet. They have heard about this thing called 'bullying' but they don't know what it is. How would you explain it to them? Now do the work. Afterwards imagine the aline comes back. What would you tell them now that you wouldn't have before? What would you change? What would you add?

The nice thing about an alien (I know - I am convinced I have taught some!) is that they know absolutely nothing. You can't say 'It is like...' because they don't know that either. It forces the class to really try to unpack the word.

I use story boards to explore strategies - so create a sheet of paper with 6 boxes. Put a dilemma in the first box - so draw two people talking and one says to the other a problem - for example 'I am being bullied - how can I make it stop?'. Get the children to complete the story to show how they would bring it to a really good end. Now do whatever classwork you want and then invite them to return to their story. Is it still the best strategy? What would they like to change knowing what they know now.

I also use a 'Janus face' - a looking back looking forward face in the middle of a piece of paper - then put a whole load of clouds either side. You get the kids to reflect back on whatever you want - you need to give them some prompts and then look forward to what they hope to get next.

I use this at transitions - Looking back over your time in this class/junior school/etc - what is one thing you have learnt that is really important to you, one thing that you will miss, one thing that you will not miss, one person you will miss (you get the idea) - then looking forward - One thing you want to get better at, one thing you are really looking forward to, one thing you want to try, one thing that makes you a bit nervous, one thing that makes you very nervous. If it was a transition to secondary school you could add, something I want everyone in my new school to know about me, one thing I want my form tutor to know but no one else. You can even give them an envelope with their name on it - so n one but you and perhaps their new form tutor can see it.

This can be very powerful for their next tutor especially if it is a secondary school. If you can get the secondary school to really value these they make a great reflection at the end of the first term - so did you try out the things you wanted to? Did the not so good things happen? etc etc. It also provides useful data for secondary schools who either send teachers or pupils back into partner primary schools because they know what to talk about.

One more I use a lot is 'bus stop people' - It is a drawing of some pupils standing by a bus stop with a load of speech bubbles and think bubbles around their heads. Say to the class 'Imagine a group of people from our school (a little older than you or a little younger depending what you as a teacher want). They are all taling and thinking about xyz. What do you think they are thinking, feeling and saying? This is a powerful way of getting inside how young people think other young people think and feel. Now draw yourself in the picture - if they ask your opinion what would you be feeling, thinking and saying? It can be reassuring to find you are actually no differnt from your peer group - what we imagine others think is often not they really think. You could do some work in class and then get the class to imagine meeting them again -would they say anything different now?

Something I really like is getting children to stick a very small photo of themselves in the middle of a piece of paper and then put cloud bubbles above the picture and cloud bubbles below. Get the children to write 'My name is... and I think I am..... Now put in the bubbles above words that they think really describes them. With younger children you might need to have worked on a word bank before doing this.

Then over the bubbles below the photo put a heading 'My friends think I am... and get their friends to offer some positive words. If it is appropriate you could add 'My family think I am...' but be careful with that in case they don't have one. You obviously need to set this up carefully. this can be a living document - you can get cloud shaped post its so children can change them as the year progresses. It makes a brilliant wall display 'We are class xyz'. Parents find them fascinating!