In Nursery, the class teacher wanted to find out if the pupils were able to use the scientific enquiry to suggest answers to questions. The teachers elected the focused assessment activity Rocket Mice from the TAPS database to do this. Photographs were taken of each child participating in the focused assessment task and these were annotated as shown in the example. The teacher was able to gather evidence of the pupils’ learning through questioning, discussion and observation.

As can be seen from the annotations the class teacher asked the pupils a variety of open and closed questions, for example,  ‘which rocket was the best?’ and ‘what made it go far?’ The teacher asked the pupils to explain their reasoning by asking them ‘why?’ The recorded responses clearly showed the teacher if the pupils were able to meet the learning objective.

Link to Y2 rocket mice

Nursery, Marlborough Primary, Cardiff