The Vocabulary Assessment grid

“Teaching new words is important: we know that a robust vocabulary underpins and improves our ability to communicate via listening, speaking, reading and writing. Yet, the explicit teaching of ambitious vocabulary does not guarantee retention and deep learning of new words for our pupils. In fact, exposition of new vocabulary could be thought of as the beginning of the journey of a word. We must then turn our attention to how we embed recently-taught vocabulary in order for pupils to consolidate secure understandings.”

Matthew Western

EFF

Vocabulary is the bedrock of understanding. Assessment at its best should focus on the things that matter for student learning , the things you want to spend time on and return to as a teacher. The strategy “Keyword Assessment Grid” does both of these things. It allows students to practise applying and distinguishing key topic vocabulary. and is a simple, visual formative assessment tool that  efficiently identifies student next steps for the teacher. Most importantly it allows you, the teacher to give feedback in while learning is still happening in a structured and strategic way. 

By building a grid where key terms overlap across related concepts or remain unique to specific ideas, teachers can test whether students truly understand the nuances between competing concepts and quickly identify gaps in understanding and misconceptions. 

How to Set It Up

  • Create the Vocabulary Grid: Build a list of keywords. Design it so some words apply to multiple related concepts, while others are unique to specific ideas.
  • Write Questions for the students answer: Students answer questions by simply selecting the numbers of the correct keywords from the table.
  • Create a mark scheme:: Write out a r list of the words you expect for each answer. This makes the assessmnet  incredibly fast, and you can target key concepts that you want to know about. I promise this will develop your PCK too. 

This should be a teacher marked task, and resisting self assessment is important.   Dylan William behoves us to “Assure the quality of the learning, while it is happening, rather than after it has happened”  to this end, the checking of the vocabulary selected by the students should be considered a midpoint in the process, not the end point. It takes very little time for you to mark, and it provides insights into emerging misconceptions and gaps that you may need to reteach. I have never used this strategy without having to reteach a concept or two, and the timing of our assessment means this is targeted and purposeful. 

The first round of feedback asks students to reflect upon their upon omissions and misconceptions or errors. Feedback is provided to the students with an annotated mark scheme.  I suggest highlighting missing keywords and circling any words that should not have been used in that context.

Students, in their books , then  explain why they should have used a specific word. (Example: “I should have used ‘xylem’ for transpiration because that is where water travels.”) This directly directs students to develop new vocabulary. i.e. the gaps in their knowledge. 

Students can then explain why they should not have used a wrong word. (Example: “I should not have used ‘phloem’ because phloem carries sugars, not water.”) This directly develops understanding of vocabulary i.e it addresses misconceptions

The final phase of the process seeks to deepen student content knowledge and understanding.  

Teachers should then choose at least two of the original  questions for students to write out in full sentences, connecting the vocabulary into a complete response. This approach provides students with content focused feedback while giving them a clear scaffold  for how to structure their work. What you choose should be based upon your knowledge of the student and the importance of the content for their future assessments or understanding. It should provide practice on what is important for the content but ultimately it should be  what the next best step is for the student.  

Summary 

With careful vocabulary selection, the Keyword Assessment Grid proves that diagnostic assessment doesn’t need to be time consuming to be effective. It saves teachers precious marking time while providing students with structured, content-focused feedback that reshapes their understanding. Therefore students takes longer to complete their work than the teacher, and thereby fulfilling Dylan Williams’ Core Principles in  “Embedded Formative Assessment”

“feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students; and it should be more work for the recipient than the donor. Indeed, the whole purpose of feedback should be to increase the extent to which students are owners of their own learning,”

This strategy works as it provides feedback “in the act” of learning at a structured point within the process. Here the feedback happens before they do the longer written tasks not after it. It improves their understanding so that they can tackle it. With all good assessment strategies it is much more a conversation than a test. 

Designing Our Basecamp: Creating the Conditions for Collaboration

“Has anyone got the latest standards map?”

It’s the sort of question that could be asked in almost any staffroom.

Within moments, the replies begin to appear. One colleague thinks it was emailed a few weeks ago. Another is certain it’s in a drive somewhere. Someone else remembers uploading it to Basecamp but can’t quite remember where. Eventually, after a few minutes of searching, somebody finds it.

Problem solved.

Except, of course, it isn’t really about the standards map.

Moments like these happen every day in schools. They rarely feel significant on their own, but collectively they create something much bigger. They interrupt thinking, slow collaboration and, perhaps most importantly, steal time from the work that matters most. Instead of designing exceptional learning experiences for children, we find ourselves searching for documents, retracing conversations and wondering where the latest version lives.

As we reflected on our own practice at Norton Campus, we found ourselves returning to a deceptively simple question:

What if we designed the way adults collaborate with the same care and intention that we design learning for children?

Designing culture isn’t just for children

One of the ideas that sits at the heart of Expeditionary Learning is that culture is designed.

The environments we create for children don’t happen by chance. Every Crew protocol, every critique session, every learning target and every presentation of learning is intentionally crafted to build not only knowledge, but character, belonging and purpose. We know that beautiful work doesn’t emerge through luck; it grows from thoughtfully designed systems and relationships.

It made us wonder whether the same principle should apply to adults.

If we expect students to collaborate, seek critique, share ideas openly and improve their work through feedback, shouldn’t we be equally intentional about creating the conditions that allow teachers to do exactly the same?

After all, expeditionary learning has never been the work of one individual.

Great expeditions are built together

The very best expeditions rarely begin with one person sitting quietly behind a laptop.

They emerge through conversation.

A colleague recommends the perfect core text that completely reshapes the narrative. Someone else shares a community contact that transforms a classroom project into authentic work with real purpose. A simple question during a planning meeting challenges an assumption, leading to a richer guiding question or a more meaningful final product. Through critique, collaboration and shared expertise, the expedition becomes stronger than any individual could have designed alone.

At Norton Campus, we were already collaborating well. Staff shared ideas generously, supported one another and continually looked for ways to improve the learning experiences we offered our children.

The challenge wasn’t our willingness to collaborate.

The challenge was that our collaboration had become fragmented.

Important conversations lived across emails, chats and informal discussions in the corridor. Resources were stored in different places. Contact details for experts and community partners often relied on individual colleagues’ memories. Previous expedition plans contained a wealth of knowledge, but that knowledge wasn’t always easy to access when it was needed.

None of these issues felt particularly significant on their own.

Together, however, they created unnecessary friction.

Sometimes the answer isn’t something new

Schools are no strangers to new initiatives.

When something isn’t working as effectively as we’d like, our instinct can be to search for another platform, another process or another system that promises to solve the problem.

We consciously chose not to do that.

Basecamp wasn’t new to Norton Campus. We’d used it before, albeit with varying degrees of confidence, consistency and understanding. Some teams had embraced it. Others dipped in occasionally. For many colleagues, it had gradually become another place to look rather than the place where expeditionary work naturally happened.

The issue wasn’t the technology.

It was that we had never collectively established its purpose.

So instead of introducing something new, we decided to redesign something we already had.

What if Basecamp wasn’t simply another digital platform?

What if it became exactly what its name suggests?

A Basecamp.

The place where every expedition begins.

The place where ideas are shared, plans evolve through critique, questions are welcomed, resources are easy to find and great work is celebrated long after an expedition has finished.

Designing for collaboration

As we began reshaping our Basecamp, we deliberately avoided asking questions about features or functionality.

Instead, we focused on people.

What do teachers actually need in order to collaborate well?

  • They need to find things quickly.
  • They need somewhere to ask questions without feeling they’re interrupting someone else’s day.
  • They need opportunities to seek critique before ideas become fixed.
  • They need a place where brilliant resources don’t disappear into an email thread, never to be seen again.
  • They need somewhere that captures the collective wisdom of a school so that every expedition benefits from those that came before it.

Those conversations shaped everything.

Rather than creating a digital filing cabinet, we designed a shared workspace that mirrors the life of an expedition itself. From the earliest spark of an idea through planning, critique, delivery, Presentation of Learning and final reflection, Basecamp became organised around the journey rather than the documents.

Because ultimately, this was never about technology.

It was about reducing friction so that more time could be spent thinking deeply about learning.

Learning through experience

When we introduced our refreshed Basecamp during staff professional learning, we resisted the temptation to spend the morning demonstrating menus and clicking through folders.

Instead, we tried to model the very approach we encourage teachers to take with children.

Learning by doing.

After exploring the thinking behind the project, colleagues worked through authentic scenarios together.

Where would you ask for critique on your guiding question?

Where would you share a brilliant resource you’ve just discovered?

How would you celebrate another team’s Presentation of Learning?

Rather than being told where everything lived, staff completed a playful series of “Basecamp Missions”. They explored the platform for themselves, posted questions in the Expedition Staffroom, replied to colleagues, located standards maps, found their own expeditions on the Expedition Journey and celebrated one another through shout-outs.

The room quickly filled with conversation.

Questions prompted more questions.

Ideas sparked other ideas.

The technology quietly faded into the background, allowing collaboration to become the focus.

Perhaps that was the greatest compliment we could pay the platform.

The platform isn’t the point

Throughout the session we returned to one simple message.

Basecamp isn’t an accountability tool.

  • It isn’t another initiative competing for colleagues’ attention.
  • It is simply our shared workspace for expeditions.
  • If it reduces the number of emails we send…
  • If someone finds a standards map in seconds rather than minutes…
  • If a colleague feels confident enough to ask for critique before launching an expedition…

If one brilliant idea spreads across the campus because it was shared in the right place…

Then it is doing exactly what we hoped it would do.

No digital platform transforms a school’s culture on its own.

People do.

Technology simply creates opportunities.

It is the habits we build around it—the generosity, curiosity, openness and willingness to collaborate—that ultimately make the difference.

Looking ahead

It would be tempting to end this story by declaring our Basecamp complete.

The reality is quite the opposite.

Like every expedition we design, our Basecamp will continue to evolve. It will improve through critique, adapt in response to feedback and grow alongside the people who use it. New ideas will emerge. Better ways of organising our work will inevitably develop. That’s not a flaw in the system; it’s evidence that the system is alive.

Perhaps that’s the real lesson we’ve taken from this process.

We often speak about designing the conditions for children to thrive.

Maybe we should spend just as much time designing the conditions that allow adults to collaborate brilliantly.

Because when teachers can find what they need, ask thoughtful questions, learn from one another and share their best thinking without unnecessary barriers, everyone benefits.

Most importantly, so do the children.

After all, every great expedition begins with a strong Basecamp.

From Writers to Authors: The Importance of Publishing!

There is a profound shift in a child’s mindset when their writing moves from a standard exercise book into a beautifully bound book or a polished A4 display piece. For our pupils, seeing their hard work published has transformed the entire writing process from a simple classroom task into a meaningful journey with a real-world purpose.

When children know their work will be read by an audience outside the classroom, their engagement skyrockets. They stop writing just to get a mark from a teacher and start writing to truly connect with a reader. This process also makes the hidden labor of writing visible; pupils get to see the direct result of their brainstorming, drafting, editing, and resilience turned into a tangible, professional product. Ultimately, holding a finished book or seeing a polished piece of writing builds immense self-esteem. It signals to our young writers that their voices matter, their ideas are valuable, and they are, truly, published authors.

We are incredibly proud of the dedication our pupils show throughout the writing cycle 😀🌟

From Guesswork to Greatness

Why Mini Whiteboards Are Your Best Diagnostic Tool for the classroom

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished explaining a complex concept and you ask the class: “Does everyone understand?”

A sea of nodding heads meets your gaze. You move on, only to find during the next assessment that half the class were actually lost at sea.

If we want to close the attainment gap and ensure no student is left behind, we need to move away from a “finger-crossing” pedagogy. This is where the humble mini whiteboard (MWB) becomes the most powerful piece of tech in your classroom.

Maths in Years 7 & 8

The value of this tool was brought into sharp focus during this week’s lesson drop-ins across Key Stage 3 Mathematics. Observing Year 7 and 8 lessons, it was striking to see how MWBs transformed the room from a passive environment into an active classroom. In one Year 8 session the teacher’s use of mini whiteboards was used to spot misconceptions and check students’ understanding of probability, the teacher paused, scanned the whiteboard responses and could make an informed decision on whether to move the lesson on or practise the current step. While in Year 7 students grappled with fractions and integers. Whiteboards were used by students to allow the teacher to ‘see’ students thinking across equivalents, simplifying and adding fractions.

These snapshots from classrooms this week highlight how they are essential for navigating formative assessment and providing in the moment feedback from students. 

The Power of 100% Participation

Traditional questioning (the “hands up” approach) usually samples the most confident 10% of the class. Mini whiteboards flip the script. When you say, “3, 2, 1… Show me!”, you get an instantaneous snapshot of every single student’s current understanding.

Why this matters for your PD:

  • Total Participation Technique: This boosts the participation ratio.  Every student must commit an answer to the board.
  • Safety to Fail: The temporary nature of a whiteboard marker means students are more willing to take risks when they know a mistake can be swiped away in seconds.

Diagnostic feedback isn’t just about seeing who got it right; it’s about identifying why they got it wrong. Mini whiteboards allow you to spot misconceptions and adapt your teaching accordingly. 

How to Maximise the Diagnostic Value:

StrategyActionBenefit
Hinge QuestionsAsk a multiple-choice question with specific distractors.Quickly identify exactly which misconception a group holds.
Process CheckingAsk students to show the first step of a multi-stage problem.Catch errors in logic 
Selective SamplingScan the room and narrate what you see: “I see three different methods for question four…”Promotes peer-to-peer learning and normalises diverse thinking.

Improving Your Practice: Top Tips

To make MWBs work effectively, consistency in routines is key. Without them, they can quickly turn into a distraction.

  1. The “Chin-It” Routine: Teach students to hold the board under their chin. This prevents them from hiding behind their boards or peering at their neighbour’s work.
  2. The “Hover & Pounce”: While students are writing, circulate. If you see a common error emerging, you can stop the class immediately to re-teach.
  3. No-Erase Policy: Occasionally, tell students not to erase their first attempt. This allows you to discuss the journey from a misconception to the correct answer.

The Bottom Line

Mini whiteboards are more than just a novelty; they are a high-leverage tool for responsive teaching. They allow us to stop teaching the lesson we planned and start teaching the students in front of us.

By making the invisible (thought processes) visible, we can provide the precise feedback our students need to succeed.

“Feedback is most powerful when it is given in the moment of learning, not as a post-mortem of a finished task.”

Based on the successes seen in Maths this week, which specific topic in your upcoming expedition would benefit most from a “show me” moment to catch common misconceptions?

Activism, Authenticity and Aquarium Tanks

There is always a moment, somewhere in the middle of fieldwork, when you are reminded exactly why it matters.

Sometimes it is a child standing silently in front of a shark tank, completely captivated. Sometimes it is the thoughtful question that no worksheet could ever have prompted. Sometimes it is overhearing a six-year-old explain microplastics to another child with genuine urgency and compassion.

And sometimes, it is a member of the public stopping you simply to say: “Your children are incredible.”

Recently, our Year 2 children visited The Deep as part of our expedition, The Blue Planet: How Can I Impact the World? Through this learning expedition, children have been exploring ideas around ocean conservation, stewardship and plastic pollution. The visit included immersive exploration of the aquarium itself alongside a workshop focused on protecting our oceans from plastic waste.

On paper, it was a fieldwork visit. In reality, it was something much bigger.

At XP, fieldwork is not an “extra” bolted onto the curriculum. It is not a reward at the end of learning. It is the learning. It is one of the ways we enact the design principle of Activism — creating authentic opportunities for children to encounter the world beyond the classroom and understand their capacity to change it.

Before the visit, the children had already been grappling with big ideas:
How does plastic end up in our oceans?
Why are marine animals affected?
Who is responsible?
Can children make a difference?

But there is a profound difference between reading about environmental damage and standing face-to-face with the creatures affected by it.

Inside the workshop, the children asked thoughtful, challenging questions. They connected prior learning to new information. They debated responsibility. They shared genuine concern for marine life. Importantly, they were not performing knowledge for adults — they cared.

This is the power of purposeful fieldwork within expeditionary learning.

As teachers, though, we also know the grapple.

  • Fieldwork is expensive.
  • Transport costs continue to rise.
  • Budgets are tight.
  • Staffing ratios matter.
  • Risk assessments take time.
  • The organisation behind the scenes is significant.

There are often easier options.

  • We could stay in school.
  • We could watch videos.
  • We could simulate experiences.
  • We could protect timetable time and reduce logistical stress.

And yet, experiences like this remind us why we continue to fight for fieldwork anyway.

Because authenticity changes the quality of learning.

The children returned from The Deep not simply with “facts” about oceans, but with something far more important: a sense of responsibility. Their writing improved because they had something real to say. Their scientific understanding deepened because they had encountered real-world contexts. Their compassion grew because they had emotionally connected with the issue.

This is difficult to quantify in data terms, but immediately visible in the work children produce afterwards.

There is also something important around equity here.

Experiences like visiting aquariums, museums or galleries are not universally accessible outside of school. For some children, fieldwork provides cultural experiences they may otherwise never encounter. When we remove authentic experiences from the curriculum, it is often the children with the least access outside of school who lose the most.

That matters deeply.

One of the most powerful moments of the day came not from the exhibits themselves, but from the conduct of the children. Throughout the visit, members of the public repeatedly commented on their behaviour, curiosity and politeness. They noticed children who were engaged. Children who listened carefully. Children who were excited about learning.

And perhaps that is another often-overlooked outcome of fieldwork within expeditionary learning:
children learning how to exist in the world.

  • How to speak to experts.
  • How to ask questions.
  • How to navigate public spaces.
  • How to represent their community.
  • How to engage respectfully with people and ideas beyond school walls.

These are not “extras”.
They are part of the curriculum too.

At XP, we often talk about creating beautiful work, authenticity and purposeful products. But experiences like this are a reminder that beautiful work begins with beautiful experiences — experiences that allow children to feel wonder, responsibility and connection to the wider world.

Fieldwork is not always easy. But days like this remind us that it is always worth it.

Can Five-Year-Olds Change the World?

There is a moment in almost every expedition when the learning stops feeling like “school work” and starts feeling real.

For our children, that moment came when they realised that the plastic floating in our oceans was not just something happening somewhere else, to somebody else. It was happening here. Now. To living things.

And suddenly, five and six-year-olds began talking about responsibility.

Not because we told them they should care, but because they genuinely did.


At Norton Infant School, many of our expeditions are built around the idea of protecting our planet and helping children understand that even small actions matter. Through stories such as Somebody Swallowed Stanley and Harry Saves the Ocean, scientific investigation, fieldwork and discussion, our children began to explore the impact of pollution on marine life and the wider environment. They questioned. They challenged. They empathised. Most importantly, they wanted to act.

This is sometimes the moment adults underestimate children.



We often talk about young children as “the next generation” — future citizens who will one day inherit the responsibility of caring for the planet. But what if they are already capable of contributing now?

In our classrooms, we saw children begin to view themselves not simply as learners, but as stewards.

They designed posters to encourage recycling. They discussed how litter reaches oceans. They created their own versions of environmental stories. They spoke passionately about protecting sea creatures. Some even began changing habits at home, encouraging family members to recycle more carefully or reduce plastic use.

The impact of the work stretched beyond the classroom walls too. In EYFS, children created beautiful land art inspired by the natural world, which was then transformed into bin labels designed to encourage people to recycle responsibly. These labels are now being distributed far beyond our school community, allowing the children to see that their work can genuinely influence others.

In Key Stage One, children designed artwork for reusable water bottles, helping to promote more sustainable choices and reduce the amount of single-use plastic being used. For the children, these were not simply “craft activities” or end products — they were real contributions to a real issue.

None of this happened through a worksheet.

It happened because the learning was purposeful, emotional and connected to the real world.

At XP, we often talk about creating learning that develops academic success, character growth and beautiful work. Environmental learning at Norton allows all three to flourish simultaneously. Scientific understanding sits alongside compassion. Writing gains purpose because there is a genuine audience. Artwork becomes more careful because the message matters.

Most importantly, children begin to realise something powerful:

their voice has value.

This matters because the challenges facing our world can often feel overwhelming, even for adults. Climate change, pollution and environmental destruction are enormous global issues. Yet young children instinctively approach these problems differently. They do not begin with cynicism. They begin with hope.

And hope is powerful.

One of the most striking aspects of these expeditions was the sense of collective responsibility it created. The children constantly reminded one another to pick litter up. They noticed plastics in packed lunches. They talked about keeping animals safe. Stewardship became part of the culture of the classroom rather than simply a lesson objective.

That shift matters.

Because education is not only about preparing children academically. It is also about helping them understand the kind of people they want to become.

Can five-year-olds change the world?

Perhaps not all at once.

But they can change a family habit.

They can influence a community.

They can challenge adult thinking.

They can grow into people who believe their actions matter.

And maybe that is exactly where changing the world begins.

Green Top: Adaptive teaching in writing

Green Top has placed a significant emphasis on inclusive teaching within writing, with a clear focus on adapting resources and scaffolds to ensure that all children can access learning independently at their own level.

A recent Trust Teaching and Learning Review highlighted numerous strengths in this area. Feedback noted that “adaptive teaching in writing was evidenced strongly and is a cultural norm at Green Top during walkthroughs.” Reviewers also identified that “adaptive processes are leading to independence from all children,” and that “writing productivity in books for SEND children is much stronger due to the scaffolds in place.”

A range of adaptive teaching strategies underpin this success. These include the use of coloured paper (such as blue and yellow) to support visual processing, widgets to aid understanding, colourful semantics to scaffold sentence construction, and the use of iPads to enhance accessibility and engagement. Together, these approaches ensure that all pupils, including those with SEND, are able to participate fully and develop confidence and independence in writing.