The Role of the QAMSO Lead in our city
As a city we have 3 Primary and 7 Secondary QAMSO Leads. The QAMSO leads have an important part to play in facilitating and supporting Moderation across the city.
- They fully understand the process of moderation, including digital moderation, that can enable easier moderation processes within their own setting and across wider establishments.
- They can lead moderation practice in their setting/across their Learning Community
- They can support wider moderation processes leading to greater consistency across the Local Authority, the West Partnership and beyond.
- They are able to moderate effectively across curricular areas
- They have a network to support them –other QAMSOs, local / regional networks, Assessment Development Officer and QIO.
Every Secondary School in Glasgow as at least one trained QAMSO and we ware working towards every Primary School have at least one member of staff QAMSO too. This is a great CLPL opportunity for all staff who are looking to lead moderation in their establishment and support SLT to ensure robust and consistent practices are in place. HMIE have an expectation that all schools have clear leadership in moderation practices and have a shared understanding of the purpose of assessment and moderation for young people.
Peter LaCrombe, PT at St Mary’s primary has given us an insight into his experience as a QAMSO Lead and how he has helped to support effective moderation practices within the Learning Community.
“Moderation allows for all practitioners to arrive at a shared understanding of standards and expectations. The Moderation Cycle is integral to the planning of learning, teaching and assessment. As Lead QAMSO it has been of great benefit to work with staff in my establishment to come to a shared expectation of what a level is. The collaborative process of planning, implementing and evaluating has helped staff build their understanding and confidence in using moderation to support their professional judgement. Followed by self-evaluation all staff commented that they now felt increased confidence in using the different variety of assessments to evidence a leaners achievement and it being at the expected standard through moderation activities.
With the success of what was happening within my establishment it was important to look outwards and expand this across the Learning Community, eventually culminating in the Collaborative Learning Community Project (CLC). Originally involving the three primary schools increased to incubus the two Early Years Establishments and Secondary School. Tying together Glasgow’s Pedagogy using the LiLT teams input on “Thinking Routines”, plan collaboratively and implemented within Social Studies. Visits then arranged to observe the planned lesson, followed by learning conversation with pupils and the learner evidence used in the agreed moderation activity. The impact stated by those involved was that it was extremely beneficial to be able to tie together everything and be able to observe the learning experiences take place that then was able to lead into valuable professional dialogue during the moderation activities.”
If you would like to complete the QAMSO training, we have places available on the next session in Glasgow. Wednesday 29th November and Thursday 30th November for Primary and Secondary colleagues specifically. More information is available vie CPD Manager.
