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For your weekly spelling test use simple 1-10 or 1-20 numbered form (with a name question too of course) and ask the children to type in their answers as you read out the list of words. Once these are submitted apply formula to judge if they are correct or not and it becomes self marking.

The reason for my inclusion of that particular Dilbert cartoon at the top of this post is that I reckon most UK teachers couldn’t differentiate between a Level 4b and 4a in their subject. In fact, the distinction’s pretty meaningless. I’ve seen some schools use the sub-levels as following: Level 4c – some work at Level 4 standard Level 4b – most work at Level 4 standard Level 4a – all work at Level 4 standard In that case, why use the sub-levels in the first place? It’s my belief that  Assessment for Learning, that buzz-phrase from a couple of years ago, has been hijacked and contorted into something it’s not. I’m certainly not arguing against students knowing where they’re at in a subject and how to improve. It’s just that using National Curriculum levels as a means for doing this smacks of laziness to me. Instead, professional teachers should be able to convey the key skills, processes and subject knowledge students need to be able to progress. That’s just good teaching.

Class blog Think about who is your intended audience for your ‘About page’?  Your students, parents/family, or to help connect with other classes? Below are examples of the type of information you might include for each audience — remember you can add more pages if needed (e.g. a Welcome parents page, blogging rules) For students and/or parents: What is a blog The goals of the class blog About the teacher(s) How to interact with the blog e.g. subscribe to blog, comment on posts, guidelines for writing appropriate comments Teacher(s) contact details To connect with classes in other schools: What country, state and city you are from? Year (grade level), subject and age groups The types of connections your class is interested in e.g. becoming blogging buddies, engaging in global projects The type and size of school Class or teacher contact details