In a nut shell:-
I have no say or influence over the decisions regarding putting APP in place, I simply have to develop/find a method that meets the schools demands/expectations and works for Music. Any evidence to support what I say is counterred and dismissed so there is no way that they will take any notice of the review by Kings College. Frustrating yes but a fact of life at the moment.

hi

have you directed your head of english to the review by Kings College:

"It is, however, unnecessary for schools to adopt APP in order to secure valid and reliable assessments year by year. There are a number of well-established techniques by which accurate and robust assessments of English can be assured. These include ‘blind’ assessment, cross-moderation and assessment subject to sampling by an experienced assessor external to the school, for example a member of a local consortium. Such an approach would achieve the objective of accurate teacher assessment in each of Years 7 to 10 without the curricular distortions inherent in APP."


and

"there is no evidence in the public domain that APP increases pupils’ achievement."

I have quoted from "Making more of Music" and from what Martin Fautley and Anthony Anderson have said - the response I received was that this was all a load of crap and that I didn't know what I was on about!!!!!!!
They say in one breath that they are not expecting me to level every piece of work but the timeframe for putting data on the system means that with only 1 lesson per week that is in effect what has to happen. I now have some guidance for pupils on what they need to do to improve their work to get to the next level but do not intend to start using a kind of tick list that English has - the link to English is mainly because they have all the APP up and running and the Head of English is now responsible for rolling APP out across the school.

Have you looked in the last national Ofsted report 'Making More of Music'? Around P. 31 somewhere it talks about not allocating excessive numbers of levels. Why on earth does your school think it will help you to look at the stuff for English?

Hi
I found the following link useful

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/75/86/AfLnotAPP-summaryandupdate.pdf

How long are your lessons? How do you manage to baseline assess in 2 lessons and be accurate? Are you able to make a full judgement across all the different aspects within only 2 lessons?

On entry to Year 7 we start with a scheme of work appropriately called "Overture" where we baseline assess all the Year 7 pupils, over 2 lessons. This enables us to contradict ridiculous levels that are set linked to English/Maths ability and have a realistic idea of the ability of each individual. Our school has a data collection each term. Although I am firmly opposed to it, I have no choice but to participate, as it is school policy. I input my markbook on Excel and I use the pupil speak Level Descriptors that are on the free part of www.mtrs.co.uk with classes . I do find these extremely useful although a bit general. I also keep example recordings of different levels for different tasks.

Every pupil should have a description of their Musical abilities and achievements at the end of KS3 not a number.

I want to jump on the anti level band wagon here. I recently met with other 20 teachers none of whom seemed to find levelling – and particularly sub-levelling useful.

Just to add to the anti sub-level sentiment: here’s a copy of some correspondence I had with the head of assessment at QCA (around 4/5 years ago) : (then Jeremy Tafler)

“Sub-dividing levels is not generally good practice and should be resisted. Levels are broad, best descriptions of sets of behaviours and are not susceptible to finer delineation. It is certainly possible to discriminate performance more finely when dealing with narrower assessment domains but attainment targets cover too much ground to make sub-levels meaningful. It is difficult to see that they would be useful as targets.

Setting targets for pupils is excellent practice but these need to be specific, shared, understandable and qualititative.

Where periodic judgments are used to gather some sort of averaged progress, the levels are perfectly adequate. Under some particular circumstances, for specific purposes, QCA has reported attainment targets at sub-levels notably reporting pupil performance in the statutory tests within the most populous levels.

Sometimes teacher are unhappy at having to treat (statistically) a pupil whom they deem barely at a level with a pupil who has nearly progressed to the next level. What many do is to indicate some measure of confidence in the ascription of the level. So '2c' might be 'I think that this pupil has just about reached level 2 and fits the level 2 descriptions as a whole better than level one' '2b' might be ' I am confident that this pupil is operating solidly at level 2 but they are certainly not level 3'. '2a' might be 'I have total confidence that this pupil is operating at level 2 and is pretty close to level 3.' The point about these divisions is that a) there are no additional level 2 descriptions, the teachers are fitting pupils to the existing level descriptions; b) the three levels are measures of teachers' confidence, not a linear division of pupils' progress and c) they have limited use as a routine means of monitoring progress.”




Interestingly at the time my SLT and line manager felt that the above argued I should sub-level and set targets to sublevels! Still I have quoted the whole thing because when sub levelling I have found it useful to see it as a confidence issue rather than suggesting progression or a qualitative leap.

Anyway back to APP.

It seems to me that the QCA advice on APP
http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/assessment/Assessing-pupils-progress/How-does-APP-work/index.aspx


represents a reasonably commonsense get to know your pupil and a range of things that they can do before making a judgement. If you can - discuss you thoughts with other colleagues.

Interestingly – it seems to echo the above idea of being confident in your judgement.

“This can then be refined into 'low', 'secure' or 'high' within the level. The judgement is made in a holistic way, taking account of how independently, consistently and in what range of contexts pupils have demonstrated their skills.”


Most of this seems fine. But when applied to music levels I have to say I find the whole thing unwieldy. (Assuming here that everyone already agrees that sub levelling in music is bonkers.)

Why tell a student you are a level 3 and to get to a level 4 you need to do XYZ. When you can just discuss with the student what they are doing, how they are finding it and get them to discuss what they feel they might do to improve? Why bother demoralising my year 9 student by telling them they are STILL a level 3? Or making my year 7 feel complacent by telling him (it’s a boys school) he is a level 6?

I can’t see the benefit to the student in giving him a level. Even if I (and I don’t) agree with the level descriptors as being an accurate way of describing musical growth.

This is why APP seems irrelevant to me. Why bother with a systematic and robust externally given system if you already are able to make useful musical interventions to your students by discussing with them what they might like to do next? If the student I am talking to is happy finding a way of playing the E string on a guitar vaguely in time to his friends – what is the point of me telling him:

“yes well done but to get to a level 4 you need to maintain your own part with awareness of how the different parts fit together and the need to achieve an overall effect.” What use to the student is this knowledge that he is a level 3 - other than that he is not very good at music and an “unmusical” person?

I find the whole process a huge waste of time and energy – basically just to convince the SLT that my students progress and I am doing my job properly. Instead of inputting meaningless data every term on sub levelled progress I could be planning how best to engage my students. This is where I agree with Anthony that this should be addressed on a National level. Schools seem to be too free to bully music teachers into implementing whatever generic assessment system is flavour of the month.

I think using formative assessment is excellent but I’m not too sure if we need to relate all our interaction with our students to a level descriptor. (Have a look here at a training video to see what I mean. Almost every teacher is busy scribbling away as their student work – what has happened here to just chatting with your students about their work?)

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/20005

I’m not too sure about Andrews statement:

“1) we'd still need good evidence to help us arrive at our judgements, and we'd still need to know the content of the NC levels intimately; 2) we'd still expect to describe the learning achieved by each pupil more regularly than once every three years and to hold formative conversations with them as to how they could improve. So, regardless of the frequency of formal reporting, the need for good assessment evidence to inform good planning, teaching and assessment for learning would still hold. We have the NC levels; why would we want to invent another set of criteria?”

For the above reasons I have already discussed – that is it is perfectly easy to have informed, specific, useful discussions with students about the quality of their music making and how they might improve – without recourse to levels – it might be as simple as saying what happens if you try this? I can plan my lessons (if I’’m not too busy writing my assessments) without using levels by considering each students as a musician – they are more than a subset of a level statement.

I totally agree, the regular assessments are something I would do at the end of each project anyway, it's the formality of recording it centrally and benchmarking musical attainment against other subjects (unfair when unlike core subjects and humanities and like languages, in many cases, they come in with far less experience on which we can build!) that I don't enjoy. We have also looked at baseline testing to create our own data which we can then put alongside the FFT stuff. We audition every pupil in year 7, they sing a song (solo) to a singing specialist who then gives us a rough idea of their raw ability. We spend year 7 amassing other info, such as intrumental tuition reports, grades and assessed classwork and try to track these students through, identifying and monitoring gifted musicians and providing evidence that the 'gifted' students on the school register are not always the same in music, similarly the less able musicians are not always on the SEN register! It's a start at least!

Some interesting points here. I don't altogether share Anthony's view that 'levels are not designed to be teased out into separate strands' - at its most basic each level descriptor consists of an overall statement followed by a statement about performance, one about composition and a third about listening/evaluating. So strands are already there in the Attainment Target. Assessment Focuses (as used in APP) divide these strands into consistent sub-strands that can be followed from level to level (we've all come across the anomaly that singing is described in levels 1-3, but then disappears; an over-literal view would be that singing is not part of the curriculum above level 3, but I haven't met a music teacher who seriously thinks this). APP allows the teacher to collect and evaluate the evidence presented by each pupil, using it (just as before) to come to a 'best fit' analysis of the level appropriate to describe the understanding and learning of each individual pupil. It's still 'best fit', but it allows much better fit, and a much more informed one, than before.
Let's imagine for a moment that we did manage to persuade headteachers and senior managers that we should report a level only once in a key stage. Two consequences emerge: 1) we'd still need good evidence to help us arrive at our judgements, and we'd still need to know the content of the NC levels intimately; 2) we'd still expect to describe the learning achieved by each pupil more regularly than once every three years and to hold formative conversations with them as to how they could improve. So, regardless of the frequency of formal reporting, the need for good assessment evidence to inform good planning, teaching and assessment for learning would still hold. We have the NC levels; why would we want to invent another set of criteria?
I agree with Anna that to compare students' achievements in Music with notional values determined by some other system is absurd (in my school we use the Fisher Family Trust, but I am not persuaded that any member of the Fisher Family has ever met my students or would necessarily have the musical wherewithal to assess their potential). Comparisons with other subjects are usually absurd too. I get around this by doing as thorough a baseline assessment as I can when the students arrive in my classes, and insisting on using this information as the benchmark by which their progress is then measured.
I asked the thirty music teachers at our termly network meeting today about their experiences of APP. About a third had heard of APP, but no-one had been asked to prepare any materials or implement it in any way. I feel that it's only a matter of time before they are expected to, as Susie already is: once the core subjects start adopting APP, many more schools will put pressure on other subjects to adopt this non-statutory system too. I'm not keen on the terminology Anna's school uses for assessment, making it feel like a branch of the secret police. That approach makes assessment something to be feared, a high-stakes testing and inspection regime that ultimately leads either to all assessment and no teaching or a divorce of teaching and assessment. Far better to embed assessment in all the formative conversations that we as music teachers are so good at having and enabling with and between our students.

I too am expected to provide sub levels every half term. These must be recorded in the student planners, memorised by the students and accompanied by subject specific dated targets (also half termly) which are ticked when they have been acheived. Planners are 'scrutinised' (yes that's what SLT call this process) and subjects picked up if this is not completed. I like to think that I assess students effectively using a variety of methods (I will upload my current assessment grid to my page), however this formalisation of the process irritates me as it is enforced and the very terminology (work scrutiny, planner inspection etc.) is negative from the start. Worse still when we input data for termly reports, the screen flashes red/yellow/green to let me know if the student is over/under acheiving in music, based on data completely unrelated to musical criteria or aptitude. I will follow this thread for ideas on how to approach it more effectively and try to remember that AFL itself can only be a positive tool for effective learning despite the way it is implemented and monitored in some schools! Sorry for going a bit off topic here.

I copied Martin's reply to the Head of English and have so far heard nothing further. The creation of APP materials is written in to all Faculty Improvement Plans for this term so I expect to be "spoken to" when/if I do not produce something for Music and Art (I am a Head of Faculty). We are currently inputting information onto the system for yr7, yr8 and yr9 to indicate if pupils will exceed their target level/achieve it/ be 1 sub level below/ be more than 1 sub level below at the end of the keystage. Considering that year 7 were only given targets in mid december its totally ridiculous to be expected to say where they are in terms of the end of the key stage. To complicate the issue further Music becomes optional at the end of year 8.
I'd much rather my pupils remembered how to play the melodies etc that they are learning and than be able to recite their current and target level when asked! (maybe we could turn it into a rap/chant to be performed - sorry, grumpiness taking over.)
I can be very stubborn about things when I want - I won't give in easily!
Thanks for the comments and support.

It's about time this issue was properly addressed at a national level. No matter what the messages coming from QCDA are about not assessing too regularly or from Ofsted it never seems to reach SLTs. This is simply not good enough. Susie's issues are the same in so many schools and the expectations are far from reasonable. Levels are not designed to be teased out into separate strands, re-written, sub-levelled or used to assess pieces of work. I have not yet worked in a school as an AST where levels are not expected at least every year. Something must be done about all of this - it is a burden on already pressured teachers. Thank goodness for people like Martin Fautley who are leading the thinking in this area - read his new book on the subject! In the meantime, use the evidence sited and seek support from the Regional Subject Advisors for the new KS3 curriculum in your area. Visit www.newsecondarycurriculum.org/ or www.name.org.uk for more info on this. Don't give up Susie!

I'm leading a discussion at our local authority Network meeting tomorrow on Assessment in Music and APP, so I'll conduct a straw poll there on who's been asked to prepare - or even think about - APP in Music. I'll post the results here.

I'd be interested to know how common the experience/requirement is of teachers having to devise their own music APP materials, or are Andrew and Susie isolated examples? Anyone who is, or knows of, please say so!

Thank you Andrew that will certainly help me to get started - I can't see me being allowed to not produce something.

I've posted a page of my APP Music materials (Levels 4 - 5) as a sample on the resources part of this site, so that you can look at them and see if they're what you want.
The way that I use them is that I have a rough idea (from previous assessments) of the level at which a student is working, so I select the appropriate card (e.g. Levels 4-5). Each student has a separate card, and I keep a class set of cards in a file. Whenever I see a student demonstrating particular skills or understanding I use a highlighter to record the fact, together with a very brief note giving the date and location of evidence (e.g. "written eval'n, 14/1/10" or "ensemble rehearsal, 25/9/9"). Over a relatively short time I can see easily at what level the student is operating, and where I need to intervene to assist them to develop. The information is useful for formative discussions with the students too.

Thank you for your replies.
My school has been expecting ofsted since October, we are on a local authority notice to improve and have an executive head overseeing a whole raft of changes and improvements. Its been a roller coaster of changes and paperwork, admittedly much of it long overdue (I've only been there just over a year). The APP materials are one of the key tasks for this term for the improvement plan.
I'd be interested to see what you have done Andrew if you are willing to share it.
Our English classrooms have numerous posters of staircases representing progression up the various strands and the aim is to have similar in every room. Not doing it is probably not an option.

As far as I'm aware, there are APP materials which are being rolled out gradually for different subjects - english and maths already have them. music's haven't been disseminated yet - it is definitely not your job to create them!!

just saw the very comprehensive replies below - mine is in a nutshell! if you have to 'play the game' I suppose you must, but do tell them that it's on its way. If you're using AfL and recording assessments appropriately, and most importantly demonstrating that progress is being made by students, ofsted will be satisfied - they won't be asking you for national documents before they are published!

I agree very much with Martin that schools could better spend their time and effort doing things other than APP in Music, especially when official published material is 'on its way', but there is another way of looking at the process. To start with, I've been told for years that new wording of the Levels in the Attainment Target is imminent... but it has still to arrive. Secondly, the principles behind APP are, I feel, so useful that it may actually be a waste of time not to get to grips with them in Music teaching now.

These principles are that APP works as teachers really get to know the detail of the level descriptors, that they seek evidence of pupils' ability and understanding across a number of skills and areas (broken down in the case of Music into much more detail than just 'Composing' 'Performing' and so on), then use this to help further planning, sharing the results with pupils (formative conversations, target setting, and so on), other colleagues, parents and managers.

I've made a set of APP materials for Music, and I'm trialling them with my students. So far I'm really pleased with how they're going, because they've allowed me to have a much clearer view of the current state of the skills and understanding of each student. This allows me to plan teaching that will address the gaps and weaknesses, and encourages them to show me evidence whenever they make a bit of a breakthrough in their learning. I'm not constantly assessing the same things (the ones that are easy to measure!) as could easily happen before.

To create these materials I started with the National Curriculum level statements, unpicked the statements, looking for strands (e.g. "Performing as part of an ensemble") that could be followed through, then attempted to fill the gaps.

I agree with the revolt against the sub-levelling nonsense, and particularly with the absurdity of such frequent reporting (it's termly at my school, which seems bad enough). But waiting for senior leaders and Ofsted to see sense may be even less fulfilling than waiting for QCA's new levels! In the meantime, I find that my trial Music APP materials allow me to see very clearly at a glance what skills and understanding each individual student has demonstrated at any given time, so when I am called up to 'give a level' I can do so with confidence and, I hope, some accuracy.

When the QCA Music APP materials do arrive, I think I'll be ahead of the game in knowing how to apply them, even if there turn out to be some differences in the detail.

As I understand it some work has been done nationally on APP for music, and materials, though not there yet, should be forthcoming. It is my opinion - and therefore only that - that for individual schools to try to produce their own APP materials for the subjects for which it is not out yet will be wasting effort and time better spent elsewhere. There is no point doing something unofficially, probably with no time and no resources, when the real thing, whilst maybe not quite around around the corner, is still on its way. Therefore music isn't ready, unlike English

What APP does have is good news for the sub-levelling nonsense, which I know I have banged on about elsewhere. It says:
"Specific sub-level assessment criteria don’t exist and have never existed. Whilst helpful guidance in arriving at level-related judgements is available, a good degree of professional judgement is also needed." This nugget is on page 6 of the DCSF publication "Getting to Grips with Assessing Pupils' Progress" available as a PDF from
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/160703

Ofsted's 'Making more of Music" (Ofsted, 2009) is also helpful on assessment and assessment frequency:

‘In one lesson seen, for example, students were told: 'Level 3: clap a 3 beat ostinato; Level 4: maintain a 4 bar ostinato; Level 5: compose an ostinato.' This demonstrated a significant misunderstanding of the expectations inherent in the level descriptions’ (Ofsted 2009: 31)

"Music teachers during the survey were struggling to find workable ways to collect assessment information and to meet whole-school requirements for data, especially where these were excessive. For example, in the most extreme cases, the music department was expected to provide assessments every half-term in relation to sub-divided National Curriculum levels." Ibid p31-2

If Ofsted says this is 'extreme' then that seems good evidence for SLTs, although in my experience this isn't 'extreme' but bloomin' normal!

And, of course, then we hear stories of Ofsted inspectors stopping kids in the corridors and asking them what level they are...

But this is a long way from APP - so to reiterate, I suggest 'wait and see' being best!