Birmingham education charity development to help teachers navigate the new National Curriculum.
The Birmingham-based charity Services for Education and digital company Ammba have come together to develop a new online tool that they hope will transform classroom learning and assessment for teachers.
Trace supports teachers as they navigate their way through the new national curriculum for 5-11 year olds, which was introduced in September 2014.
Replacing the previous ‘levels’ system, the new curriculum measures pupils’ progress against numerous different performance descriptors tailored to age-group expectations and subject.
Trace allows teachers to plan their teaching to meet the demands of the new curriculum and measure pupils’ progress throughout the year.
Rebecca Bartlett of Ammba explains the potential impact of Trace: “We were approached by Services for Education to develop a digital platform which could support teachers with curriculum design, assessment and reporting as they begin to assess without levels.
“We could see that the new curriculum would be administratively challenging to implement and there didn’t appear to be any online tool to help teachers link together the curriculum with their learning aims and assessment.
“We have worked closely with teachers and school leaders in the design of Trace to make sure that it is fit for purpose. We are already seeing its impact, saving valuable time in the classroom.”
The platform is already being used in 30 Birmingham schools and will be launched nationwide this March.
Richard Simcox, Vice Principal at Erdington Hall Primary School commented, “Trace is genuinely a platform built for teachers by teachers. It’s learning and assessment hand-in-hand rather than two separate procedures. The data it provides allow our teachers to provide evidence for the good practice that we know is taking place in our classrooms.”