Assessment and Feedback at Ryedale School
At Ryedale School, we believe that high-quality assessment and feedback are essential to effective teaching and learning. Our approach is designed to ensure that students are supported in developing deep understanding, mastering key knowledge and skills, and making meaningful progress across the curriculum.
The Importance of Assessment
Assessment plays a vital role in helping teachers and students understand how learning is progressing. It enables us to:
- Check for understanding at different stages—within lessons, across topics, and between subjects
- Identify strengths, areas for improvement, and common misconceptions
- Gather reliable information to track progress, inform planning, and report accurately
We use both formative and summative assessment strategies:
- Formative assessment is embedded in everyday teaching and includes questioning, low-stakes quizzes, exam-style tasks, and deliberate practice. These methods help teachers adjust instruction in real time and guide students toward deeper learning.
- Summative assessment is structured and planned across the year. Our middle leaders have mapped out 15 key summative assessments, known as Orange Sticker Assessments, which capture essential knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
Orange Sticker Assessments
Each term, students receive Orange Sticker Feedback—a consistent and visible method of communicating assessment outcomes to students and parents. This feedback:
- Highlights strengths and areas for development
- Includes a written teacher comment (once per year for practical subjects at KS3)
- Is signed by parents to confirm receipt and engagement
Orange Sticker Assessments are tailored by each department and closely aligned with the curriculum’s key knowledge and skills, ensuring they provide meaningful insights that guide future learning.
The Importance of Actionable Feedback
Feedback is most effective when it leads to action. At Ryedale School, we prioritise timely, focused, and actionable feedback that helps students improve their understanding and performance. Our feedback principles include:
- Verbal feedback: Immediate guidance during lessons, either individually or to the whole class
- Whole-class feedback: Addressing common errors through re-teaching, live marking, or feedback sheets
- Peer and self-assessment: Encouraging reflection using clear success criteria
- Written feedback: Targeted comments on specific aspects of work, helping students refine key knowledge and skills
- Marking grids/rubrics: Using descriptors aligned to success criteria to highlight strengths and areas for development
Heads of Department select feedback strategies best suited to their subject and ensure consistent application across their teams. In some cases, teachers may use feed up strategies—such as modelling and exemplars—to guide students before tasks begin, reducing the need for corrective feedback later.
We also ensure that time is built into lessons and curriculum planning for students to respond to feedback. This may involve:
- Re-teaching specific content
- Completing follow-up tasks to reassess understanding
- Making visible improvements to work, such as using a different coloured pen to correct errors
By embedding these practices into our teaching, we ensure that feedback is not only informative but also transformative—empowering students to take ownership of their learning and achieve their full potential.
What does the research say about assessment?
EEF Blog: Five ways to use diagnostic assessment in the mathematics classroom
Embedding formative assessment
Towards an assessment paradigm shift
https://teacherhead.com/2017/07/16/towards-an-assessment-paradigm-shift/
Revisiting Dylan William’s formative assessment strategy
