Preparation for Assessment Day

This will give you advice and support to help you through the work that needs to be done at each stage.


Before Day 1
It’s a good idea to have a look at the standards with someone who works with you in school. If you get the chance work through them together and think about what they mean and what you do in school that could show you are meeting them. This is then recorded in your self review that you need to bring with you to the first session.
You also need to read the Handbook for candidates. This will give you a good idea about what’s actually required for the assessment. Don’t be tempted to go too far ahead and start writing up your tasks or collecting lots of evidence.
It’s a good idea to think about the things you want to get across in your tasks, but your preparation days will support you in how to complete the response forms and what all the headings mean.
You may want to start collecting hard evidence of what you do in school, but don’t get carried away. Keeping copies of naturally occurring documents is fine if you think they will be useful, but it’s not necessary at this stage to do any more than that.


Between Days 1 and 2
Following Day 1 your facilitator will ask you to start planning Tasks 1-3 i.e. working with individuals, groups and whole classes. Use the headings that they have given you and think about the work you do in school and how you can choose events that will show what you do to the best advantage.
You may choose an event that is part of a series of sessions e.g. ELS, ASDAN, Springboard etc but remember you need to only write about one of these – not a whole series of lessons.
The assessor needs to see a snapshot of the work you do in school, and the level of detail needs to be such that they can get an overview as if they were observing you.
Remember to use “I” not “we”, even if you do work closely as part of a team – the assessor will want to hear about what you do.
As you are planning these tasks and making your notes it’s advisable to keep copies of lesson plans, evaluations etc as they may be useful sources of evidence. These need to be kept in school, and they should not be taken to any of your preparation days.
At this stage you can start thinking about which standards you may have covered, but don’t worry if you have gaps – that’s what Task 4 is for and you will address that on Day 3.


Between Days 2 and 3
After Day 2 you will have a lot of work to go away and complete. Use the advice that your facilitator has given you and the advice from your colleagues on the preparation with you.
There may be staff in school who will also support you, but remember that all files and response formats are individual, so don’t look at someone else’s file and think that yours should look the same.
At this stage you will be completing your response forms to take back to Day 3. These will not be your final copies, they are only initial drafts so don’t worry too much.
It’s often useful at this point to share your work with a “critical friend” – preferably someone who doesn’t work with you. One candidate came to Day 2 with very strong response forms with lots of detailed description because she had asked her husband to act out what she’d written to make sure she had it all in!
When you attend Day 3 you will have the chance to share your forms with your peers and get feedback from them – don’t be shy about this – it’s vital and very supportive.
As you write up your tasks you will continue collecting evidence – ideally you need two pieces of evidence for every standard – one main and one supplementary.
You need to have a balance between types of evidence – a good range is what you are aiming for – see the candidate handbook for ideas on the types of evidence. Keep this in a file in school, don’t bring them to preparation.
How you organise it is up to you but the feedback from assessors is that files organised in standard order are often clearer.
It’s at this point that your assessor will contact you, so talk to your school and have some dates in mind for when you would like your assessment visit. Assessors will negotiate on this so if you want an early or late assessment just let them know when they contact you.



After Day 3
Following the feedback you were given on Day 3 you should have a clear idea of what’s required in your tasks. You may feel happy with what you’ve done already or you may feel that you need to change them drastically – everyone is different.
It’s important to remember that there is no perfect set of response forms or portfolio – get them to a point where you feel you have done your best and then put them to one side ready for your assessment.
At this point you also need to get your evidence organised and your grid completed. Be careful with this as it is essential signposting for your assessor.
You should have mentioned each standard at least twice throughout your tasks, but not more than 4 times.
You will also have two pieces of evidence for each standard, but one piece of evidence can be used against more than one standard, possibly up to six standards against one piece of evidence, depending on what it is.
When you put your file together you need to think about how the assessor will navigate through it. Feedback from assessors is that clearly labelled and annotated evidence is very useful in making their judgements.
Ideally each piece of evidence will be labelled with the standards and tasks that it relates to, and annotated with a comment as to why it has been included as evidence for a particular standard.
It’s good practice to photocopy extracts from policy documents etc and highlight the parts that relate to what you have done. When you are including documents like lesson plans please make sure that the author is identified and if you have made notes on them it’s a good idea to initial your comments.
Your file should be no bigger than 5cm thick, and ideally you need to have between 30 – 60 pieces of evidence.
The assessors work to a very limited timetable and you are looking for quality of evidence, not quantity.
Once your file is complete and you have filled in your grid it’s a good idea to get someone to check that it’s all labelled and cross referenced correctly. Mistakes can delay assessors and could affect the outcome of the assessment.