‘Moderation is integral to planning, learning, teaching and assessment. The process of moderation is not an activity that happens only at the end of a block or year. Teachers and practitioners, with senior leaders regularly consider a range of assessment evidence which demonstrates how well children and young people are making progress and achieving their potential.’
CfE A Statement for Practitioners from HM Chief Inspector of Education, August 2016
‘Moderation is a term used to describe approaches for arriving at a shared understanding of standards and expectations for the Broad General Education. It involves teachers working together, drawing on guidance and exemplification and building on existing standards and expectations to:
- Plan learning, teaching and assessment.
- Check that assessment tasks and activities provide learners with fair and valid opportunities to meet the standards and expectations before assessments are used.
- Sample evidence from learners’ work and review teachers’ judgements.
- Agree strengths in learners’ performances and next steps in learning.
- Provide feedback on teachers’ judgements to inform improvement in practices.’
Quality Assurance and Moderation, BTC 5
Within Aberdeenshire, we have created two sites to allow schools to develop their practice. Links to both sites are below.
Aberdeenshire BGE sharing standards site
As well as the two sites an audit and toolkit have also been created to support the development of practice in this area.
From a national perspective there is also a Moderation hub which gives further advice and guidance.
More recently in June 2020 Education Scotland produced a document titled Assessment within BGE 2020/21. This short 7 page document gives guidance to support practitioners to consider how they will approach assessment as part of their planning for learning and teaching.
