For school leaders, it ticks a box for the Local Authority, MAT or Ofsted and often gives an illusion of progress, which is alluring. Most systems offer graphs which show flight paths and similar line graphs that are all based around 'ticking off' competencies within the curriculum. All too often, since levels were supposedly banished in 2014, ticking off curriculum statements has become very time-consuming for teachers.
This has become the very epitome of micromanagement. For every objective, in standard assessment systems, teachers must decide if a child has completed an objective, or is working towards it, or has exceeded it. For every single objective. For Maths in Year 4, that could potentially be up to 120 objectives - per child - and they review these termly usually.
These levels are analysed and may even printed to go home with students to parents. Students are provided with curriculum statements to focus on, that are captured from the objectives still listed as "Working Towards" in the system. We believe that there are much easier, more efficient ways for teachers to provide honest, actionable and clear feedback to students and in an ideal world, to move away from rushing tick box exercises for every child, in every class, every term.
At Kinteract, we have schools requesting to put their entire curriculum into the system. This is definitely doable, but what we really want is for schools and educators to look at assessments in a whole new light. Kinteract isn't just an assessment system.
As a teacher, you have your school curriculum to work from. Whether that is one you have created or a bought-in commercial one doesn't matter. You use it to plan your lessons. You of course want to ensure your class cover everything the need to cover by the end of the year, and you want them to be secure in that.
At Kinteract, we want you to focus your time on teaching - to do what you do best in the classroom. Don't tick off the objective for every child after every lesson, but do make notes for class or student progress if necessary, as 'feedforward'. Make an observation within the platform, so that you remember to act on it, so that the parent can follow it, and so that the child can acknowledge it on their learning journey.
This easy, seamless teacher tool is useful from Nursery to Year 13. Everyone within the learning journey likes to highlight those moments and put them on record!
