ASE 2021 Annual Conference Online

The session provides the background as to why and  how the assessment training packs have been written. It will explain how to navigate through the packs to enable you to provide bespoke training to your teachers on how the fundamental skills of science are assessed. I will signpost key resources within the packs that will help you support your students to prepare effectively for the summer series. This will include looking at the student maths skill audit, how to contextualise both practical and content based questions in order to address this aspect of AO2 and how to find materials to develop analysis and evaluation skills.

This workshop will share practical ideas about how, when starting a new topic, teachers can quickly and easily find out what their students already know and what misconceptions they may hold.  It will then consider what can be done with these insights and how subsequent progress can be demonstrated.

During this session, we will explore new materials to support teachers to standardise the GCSE mock examinations they provide for students. The process will focus on the standardisation of a single GCSE mock exam paper, using student exemplars drawn from 2019 GCSE papers, but is transferable to any examination sat by students in a given cohort.

We will also consider the information that can be gathered from a mock examination to support further student learning, at both student and cohort level.

This talk focuses on research about the ways in which teachers conceptualise assessment and how this can affect their practices in different contexts. The call for teacher assessment for A level and GCSE grades last year forced teachers to make assessment decisions and I want to unpack a little about the range of ways they went about this, how this was viewed by different stakeholders and what this suggests about future possibilities of teacher assessment within our assessment systems in the UK.

The variety of different types of questions found on biology exam papers require a range of skills that students need to learn in order to answer the questions confidently and effectively. This session will cover a selection of strategies that teachers can use with students to develop these skills.

Chaired by Dr. Andy Chandler-Grevatt with Julian Clark (AQA) and other exam board representatives.

The effects of the pandemic in schools in England and recent changes in relation to examinations this year have left schools and teachers in a turmoil. While clearly there were lessons learned from the assessment processes carried out last year, the rapidly changing environment over recent weeks cannot yet provide definite answers. However, while recognising there are difficulties, there remain some key assessment issues that need discussing and addressing for science teaching and learning. We are therefore delighted that AQA, OCR and Edexcel assessment folk will be coming to ASEConf2021 to outline some of the ways they have been developing aspects of science assessment and raising ideas that teachers might focus on in using assessment tools and approaches with their learners. There will be opportunity to ask questions and while we may not know exact details of what is likely to happen, this session will provide some background, support and professional learning about assessment.

Reporting on the prestigious Wellcome funded PASS project - a collaboration between York University and King's College London researchers in relation to recent changes on the way practical skills are now assessed at GCSE. This session will provide a project outline and emerging findings. This is a research reporting session that will get teachers thinking more about practical work in schools at both KS4 and KS3.

Exploring how we use diagnostic testing, multiple choice questions, target driven feedback and automated feedback to lower teacher workload, improve outcomes and develop reflective learners. A case study of transforming assessment in a Science department. Helpful and practical tips and resources of how you can do the same.