I’ve written a number of issues on the Bell Evaluation Framework this previous yr. Right here had been my preliminary reflections on implementing the framework, and a few musings on the way it could possibly be improved. On this submit, I share some ideas on utilizing Bell as a part of a hybrid mannequin of EAL provision.
What do I imply by ‘hybrid mannequin’?
I imply that we have now each push-in and pull-out provision for our EAL learners (in the highschool). Our learners attend mainstream courses in all topic areas besides English. They obtain in-class help in mainstream courses from our EAL specialists. Their English courses (6 classes every week) are delivered by the EAL workforce, moderately than by mainstream lecturers. We have now created an in-house EAL curriculum – the photographs beneath ought to offer you an thought of the kind of content material included (for one yr group) and the way we’re linking to themes each in mainstream English and throughout the curriculum.
Be aware: these are simply overview docs so element is proscribed, but it surely ought to give a sign of how our tailored English provision for EAL learners performs out.
Why this method?
I joined the college as founding EAL lead in the highschool. I believed my remit can be offering in-class help with some top-up, however our workforce had been timetabled to ship all English classes for EAL learners. This decreased our capability to supply in-class help, but in addition made a differentiated model of the mainstream English curriculum untenable – we would have liked to dedicate time to reviewing content material throughout topic areas too. We applied this curriculum as a workaround. The primary iteration was a relative success, though we’re seeking to embed barely extra mainstream English content material this yr.
How does evaluation work in our curriculum?
We primarily use three varieties of evaluation:
- Every of the ‘EAL matters’ outlined within the curriculum overview have a task-based evaluation. It usually varieties the ‘frequent evaluation’ for a half-term
- Learners have a termly CEFR-aligned stage check – in spite of everything, the CEFR and I are better of mates.
- We use the Bell Evaluation Framework for our ongoing evaluation
How will we work the Bell Evaluation Framework into this course of day-to-day?
Evaluation throughout mainstream courses – as customary!
Firstly, our EAL specialists observe learners in mainstream courses, and use the Bell Evaluation Framework monitoring instruments to file progress and targets. In a super world, topic lecturers can be accustomed to the software themselves, and be contributing to the information. Are they in our context? No. We’re onboarding topic lecturers to the Bell Evaluation Framework as a part of our provision, however we aren’t prepared as a faculty to do this this yr. Fortunately, we are on the stage of introducing class lecturers to the Bell Framework in our Elementary college (below the professional steerage of Adri Szlapak) so ‘part one’ is underway! Nice job, Adri.
So, Bell evaluation in the highschool is completely right down to the EAL workforce at this stage. Past observations within the mainstream and basic (incidental) monitoring, what else will we do to embed the software in our bespoke curriculum?
Mapping Bell targets to frequent assessments
We map Bell targets to our frequent assessments. Right here’s an instance of our success standards for one evaluation (this one is a part of the 12 months 8 curriculum aligning to Humanities), and the way we map some Bell targets to this:
Be aware: Don’t ask me what occurred to the element in Content material and Language factors 7-8 there. Not essentially the most thorough. However you understand, that is all from scratch – first iteration and all.
Embedded ‘Bell moments’ in on a regular basis class provision
The Bell targets are fairly fluid, in-the-moment sort expertise to look at. They don’t seem to be the kind of targets you could possibly construct a complete lesson goal round (effectively, some is likely to be). Even so, you may actually plan duties or create the situations by means of which learners can display their expertise.
We’re going again by means of the primary iteration of our schemes of labor and flagging them for ‘Bell moments’. Discover, effectively, ‘the Bell’!
Flagging these moments for our functions doesn’t imply we need to exploit them. They function a reminder that we may take that chance to informally assess learners based mostly on descriptors within the framework. It additionally helps from a planning perspective. We assessment the content material previous to instructing, realise that the lesson will embody a Bell second that we may exploit, after which we add some scaffolding accordingly (enhancing the useful resource for subsequent time too!).
There are only a couple of examples of how we’re adapting the Bell framework to work inside our context. It might not have been meant for our sort of provision, however I really feel we are able to discover methods to use it which add some worth, rigour, and so forth.
Classes: Normal, reflections