As you may know, I’ve been utilising my own system of assessment this year, (whilst of course retaining levels for whole school tracking) and I’ve been quite pleased with the result. CUE -Content Understanding Evaluation- is a condensed version of Blooms taxonomy. It places the emphasis firstly on having secure content and knowledge of a topic, secondly on the ability to explain and understand that information and finally on being able to evaluate and use the information to construct arguments, analyse information and develop original ideas. Each student is rated from 1-4 (from Beginner to Master) in each area. When I assess a piece of work, this means they can see how they rate at each area and where they need to focus. Along with qualitative feedback (WWW and EBI) I think this provides specific and useful feedback for students.
Having identified their strengths and weaknesses, the next stage is for pupils to try and improve at a given area. To help with this, I have created a series of specific challenges which should allow students to practice the skills they need.
I’m going to try these challenges out over the next few weeks and see what impact it has on developing the students understanding of these areas. Stay tuned, more to come.
History Bluff 
Did they work? Some interesting ideas on them.
Hi… yes indeed. CUE has proven quite successful as have my challenges though I do have some changes in mind. What I’m planning next year is to create a set of topic specific challenges and alternate between them each time we change. For instance… when we do the Civil War I’ll have a set of challenges centered around Charles I, Cromwell, Civil War life etc. I’m thinking of offering an incentive for completing a certain amount of challenges, a bit like a loyalty card at a coffee shop. Of course, this is all dependent on me getting into gear and sorting it out.