I have been using this concept for the past year now and it seems to work extremely well. Not only does it enable me to easily track the progress and understanding of individual pupils, it also cuts down on my marking! (and what could be better than that?!)

The idea is pretty simple. At the end of every lesson, I remind pupils of the learning objectives and they grade their own understanding by placing their book in one of four boxes, which are rag rated in colour and industry job roles.

For example; student X might not have a clear understanding of isometric drawing, therefor, the pupil would place their box in the ‘junior design’ section, stating “Im just starting to learn this and I still don’t understand it yet!”. After pupils have left, I can take all of the books out of each section and differentiate work for the following week based upon where they have placed themselves. High attainers/’creative directors’ can be given an extension or more advanced task, and lower attainers can be given further guidance and support.

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Why the design agency job roles? This is something that I use consistently across my classroom as a way of monitoring pupils without grades. I am a firm believer that all Design Technology pupils should be encouraged to work and act how they would in an industry environment and we regularly use job roles in the classroom because this is how it would be in a design agency.  (see job roles differentiation post for further info)

And the best part is? I don’t have to mark a single book! (well not that lesson anyway…)

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