First week back after BEES1.

It is a bizarre feeling being back at university after the intense environment of the school. The most valuable part of the week so far has been catching up with colleagues and sharing experiences with them. This has been a reflective process in itself as I can constantly putting myself in their shoes and thinking about how I would handle that experience myself.
Today’s EPGP700 lecture was about Assessment for Learning (AFL) and APP. This one lecture has answered so many queries that I had on placement and I already feel that I have a deeper understanding of what is required of us. During the lecture I came to the realisation that I was already starting to do some assessment for learning in my planning, I just had not heard of the term before. An example of this is evident in my sequence of lesson plans for literacy (BEES1- Practical Teaching File- Week 3- weekly plan and individual) where I have allocated myself guided groups depending on which children had struggled with the learning objective the day before. I have already set myself a target of gaining a better understanding of Assessment so I am ready for BEES2, and this week is a great opportunity to do so.

After doing some research on Shirley Clarke and watching the above clip, I am getting to grips with how to implement assessment for learning. I have realised that whilst I was starting to assess the children when I was on my last placement, I had not contemplated how the children could start to assess themselves.
For BEES2 I need to have a clear strategy for how I will implement self-assessment within the classroom. From my research on Shirley Clarke I have decided that I will get the children into the habit of writing down their opinions of how they felt during certain lessons, and display these paragraphs into their 'growth mindset' books. I will encourage and reward children who have placed themselves into a growth mindset and who have demonstrated this. Shirley Clarke does this by modelling qualities on a white mouse toy. She asks questions like are you in a growth mindset like the white mouse? Are you showing me you ready to learn? In this respect it is a very similar technique to the 'building learning power' one that I have seen on ASE and BEES1 with the building learning power hat. What I think I may do is to let the mouse (or cuddly toy of my choice) stay with a child who has displayed these qualities.