Introduction to Engagement Steps

Two short weeks ago, we were sat in a meeting discussing how best to show teachers what our new Engagement Steps assessment framework is all about. We have been working hard to improve our communications over the past few months, in order to share details on all the exciting new things we are doing in a way that best suits our teacher customers. Whilst we can make all the changes in the world, unfortunately we can’t change the lack of ‘free’ time that teachers have during their working day (boo!) and the restrictions in place on school networks (quite rightly so), both of which hamper many of the ways in which we can communicate. 

Being married to a teacher, the usual evening drill is finish work, pick the kids up from nursery, get home, deal with the incessant “I’m hungry” cries (despite them having already eaten a very hearty and nutritionally balanced meal), put the kids to bed, cook dinner, wash up and then… watch as my wife opens her laptop to plan lessons and finish up all the things that didn’t get done in the day, around 8:00pm in the evening! During the aforementioned meeting, I suggested that it would probably be a good idea to hold a short webinar about Engagement Steps around that time to allow teachers to join in online. And so at that moment, I volunteered myself for the task!

The response we had to the webinar was impressive. Far more people opted to join us than we had anticipated and the turn out was excellent. It gave us the chance to try out this new format on a topic that is very important to us and our customers (the post-Rochford Review era). Whilst the webinar went well, I learnt a lot from it and have some great ideas on how we can ‘do better next time’. We will also be working on the technical issues that affected us during the session.

You can view a recording below in case you missed it. Some great questions were asked and we think the answers would also be of interest for many of our teacher customers, so I’ve also included the questions and our answers below.

Thank you once again to all the teachers that participated, hopefully you will join us again in future as we cover more topics.

Will I be able to get a recording of this meeting to share with staff back at school?

Yes, this meeting is being recorded and will be made available afterwards for you to use and share as you need

Are the P1-P4 current targets going to disappear or is Engagement Steps going to work alongside them?

Our current P1 to P4 offering is still going to exist, however it is our expectation that schools will choose to use this (Engagement Steps) approach over P Scales. Engagement Steps should provide a far better approach to assessment and make it easier to show progress. Under the subject-specific areas, the P Scales have always struggled to support students working at these levels, something which has been reported to us over the years and has been taken into consideration in the development of Engagement Steps.

When will Progression Steps be available?

The Progression Steps Cognition & Learning section covering all the subject areas is available to purchase NOW! The sections Communication & Interaction, Social, Emotional & Mental Health and Sensory & Physical for Progression Steps are being worked on as we speak and we expect these to take 2 years to develop in full. We shall make these available to release when they become ready and there will be a ‘review period’ taking place where schools can opt for early access to review the content and suggest changes. 

Is there an additional cost for Engagement Steps if our school is already using B Squared’s Connecting Steps software? 

Engagement Steps is a completely new assessment framework and approach so there is no upgrade pricing available for this. Schools will need to buy into the framework in order to access it.

Are you having any involvement with the New Welsh curriculum following Donaldson’s recommendations?

Yes, we will be doing a breakdown for the Welsh Curriculum. We had already started this project, however as there are changes being made at the moment, this is on hold until they are finalised.

What is the difference between B Squared’s current National Curriculum and P Scale assessment frameworks and the new Progression Steps framework? 

Progression Steps has been designed to be used as an observation-based, formative assessment framework for pupils who are engaged in subject-specific learning. This framework helps teachers to identify and record the ongoing achievements of pupils who are working moderately or severely beneath age-related expectations, in some or all areas of their development. It can be used with pupils who are either studying elements from the formal curriculum or those who are still engaged with a semi-formal approach to learning. The Progression Steps assessment framework helps schools and teachers to monitor their provision for Cognition & Learning by enabling staff to record the academic knowledge and abilities achieved by their pupils. 

The structure of Progression Steps covers the ability range of pupils who would have previously been assessed as operating between P4 and the end of Key Stage 3 expectations. Skills that are deemed similarly challenging have been grouped together in steps. The organisation of these skill steps reflects the performance descriptor structure used by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) in the following documents: ‘Teacher Assessment Frameworks at the End of Key Stage 1’ (STA, 2017), ‘Interim Pre-Key Stage 1: Pupils Working Below the Test Standard’ (STA, 2017), ‘Teacher Assessment Frameworks at the End of Key Stage 2’ (STA, 2017), ‘Interim Pre-Key Stage 2: Pupils Working Below the Test Standard’ (STA, 2017), and ‘The Rochford Review: Final Report’ (STA, 2016). The Progression Steps framework breaks down the 2014 National Curriculum into smaller, more manageable, assessment points against which pupils (that make atypical rates of progress in some or all aspects of their academic development) can be evaluated. Progression Steps will be sold in three packs. These are: 

  • Core—this pack breaks down and covers the English, Maths and Science programmes of study for Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, and Key Stage 3. As there are no specified programmes of study for pupils working beneath the level of the National Curriculum, we have identified prerequisite skills for entry to the programmes of study.
  • Core+—this pack covers Personal, Social, Health & Economic Education; Citizenship; Sex & Relationships Education; Computing; and Physical Education.
  • Foundation—this pack covers Art & Design; Design & Technology; Geography; History; Languages; Music; and Religious Education.

Many of the assessment points in these Progression Steps packs link with assessment points in our 2014 P Scales and 2014 National Curriculum frameworks, and so a great deal of your pupils’ achievement data will carry across. However, we have spent a long time analysing and refining the content of Progression Steps and we believe that we have reduced the workload for teachers whilst ensuring that pupil progress milestones are still recognised.

How does B Squared’s Engagement Steps assessment framework compare with the Rochford Review’s recommended approach to assessing pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning?

The Rochford Review recommends a statutory duty to assess pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning against the following seven aspects of Cognition & Learning: Responsiveness, Curiosity, Discovery, Anticipation, Persistence, Initiation, and Investigation. The Review’s recommendations build upon a research project commissioned by the DfE, The Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD) research project (Carpenter 2011). The Engagement Profile and Scale detailed in this project encourage members of school staff to provide an activity for a pupil and then define the pupil’s engagement with the activity by describing how each of the seven aspects were demonstrated with a paragraph of text and providing a score between 0 and 4 for each these. These seven scores are then added together to provide a score out of 28. Following this assessment, the member of staff must then reflect on their interaction and identify potential changes that they could make to the activity in order to increase the pupil’s engagement. 

In the Government’s response to the “Primary school pupil assessment: Rochford Review recommendations” consultation, they agreed with the Rochford Review’s position that the statutory assessment of these pupils should focus on Cognition & Learning but should not undermine provision in any of the other three broad areas of need. But when it came to assessing the seven aspects of engagement, the Government stated that: 

“a number of individual respondents and representative organisations have expressed concerns about the introduction of a statutory requirement to assess pupils against the 7 areas of engagement, given that it was not originally designed as a statutory assessment tool, and it is relatively untested in its proposed form. Concerns have also been raised by some respondents about whether the model assesses the appropriate aspects of cognition and learning.” 

(DfE, 2017, p14)

With B Squared’s Engagement Steps assessment framework, we have taken the subjectivity out of the process. We have defined criterion-based assessment frameworks for each of the seven aspects of engagement alongside frameworks for expressive and receptive communication, social and emotional affection and sensory and physical operation. We have also extended the ability range of this framework to include pupils who would previously have been assessed at P6. We took this decision to allow Engagement Steps (non-subject-specific) and Progression Steps subject-specific) to overlap which helps pupils with spikey profiles to transition slowly into a subject-specific curriculum at a time that is appropriate to them. Given the ambiguous nature of the Government’s position on The Engagement Profile and Scale, we have promised to adapt the Cognition & Learning aspect of Engagement Steps for free if the Government decides to go a different way following their pilot scheme.

If you have any questions about this webinar, you can contact me via email – dale@bsquared.co.uk. You can also book a FREE online meeting to discuss anything from this webinar. Use the link below to find a time and date that suits you…

https://calendly.com/bsquared-dale/meet-with-dale