According to John Hattie, a researcher in education, a key purpose of teaching and learning is when teachers see learning through the eyes of students and help them become their own teachers (Hattie, 2016). Therefore, in order to teach students the necessary knowledge and skills required to be confident and successful learners, it is crucial that pupils are able to assess their progress to become self-regulated, autonomous learners. In achieving this success, formative assessment techniques, such as self-assessment checklists, have been found to encourage pupils to take control of their learning to identify strengths and areas for development in their future work (Black, 2001). Some of the children within my primary 4 classroom rely heavily upon teacher judgement, where a majority of pupils also lack confidence in understanding if they have achieved their learning intention. Moreover, it can be a struggle to ensure that all children are engaged and on task during Taught Writing experiences. Through implementing self-assessment checklists, this will allow for observation across pupil motivation and effort to find if this will increase, allowing pupils to be more confident when evaluating their own learning.
The aim of this enquiry was to evaluate the impact of self-assessment checklists on pupil motivation and effort, during Taught Writing experiences. In particular, the focus was to see if a checklist would encourage children to spend time reading over their work to ensure that they achieved the success criteria. As well as this, one aim was to promote independence by encouraging children to make judgements, assess what they have done and what they can do to achieve their target.