Embedding Formative Assessment | St Edward's School

Pedagogy Teachers are currently working on - Autumn 1, 2026

This half term, teachers are focusing on hinge questioning. A hinge question is a carefully planned question that is asked at a critical point in a lesson to determine whether students are ready to move on or whether further teaching is needed. The lesson can then take one of two directions depending on the responses students give.

In classrooms, this could include:

Using a carefully designed question to check whether all students have understood a key concept before moving on.
Asking every student to respond at the same time using mini whiteboards, voting, or other whole-class response systems.
Designing answer options that reveal common misconceptions, allowing teachers to see not just who is right, but how students are thinking.
Using student responses to adapt teaching immediately, including reteaching concepts, addressing misconceptions, or extending learning.
Encouraging students to explain and justify their thinking so that understanding is made visible.

This approach helps our teachers gain a clear picture of learning across the whole class and ensures that teaching responds directly to students' needs.

Why this is helpful for students

Every student gets involved. Rather than only hearing from a few volunteers, teachers ask all students to respond. This means every student's thinking is seen and valued, and everyone has the opportunity to participate.

Misunderstandings are spotted quickly. Good hinge questions are carefully designed to reveal common mistakes. This helps teachers identify confusion straight away and provide support before misconceptions become harder to correct.

Students learn to explain their thinking. Students are encouraged not only to give an answer but also to explain how they reached it. This helps them develop reasoning skills, communicate their ideas more clearly and build deeper understanding.

It creates a safe environment for learning. Using strategies such as mini whiteboards allows students to share their ideas without the pressure of speaking out in front of the whole class. This can help build confidence, particularly for students who may be less willing to volunteer answers.

Teaching can be adapted to meet students' needs. The information teachers gather from hinge questions helps them decide what to do next. They may move on, revisit a concept, provide extra support or offer additional challenge depending on what students understand.

Hinge questioning helps ensure that teaching is responsive to students' learning. By checking understanding at key points in a lesson, teachers can make informed decisions that help all students make progress.

How parents can support at home

Parents and carers can support this approach by helping students explain and justify their thinking.

You can support by:

Asking your child not only what answer they got, but how they worked it out.
Encouraging them to explain why an answer is correct and why other answers may be incorrect.
Praising effort, reasoning and perseverance when they are unsure, rather than focusing only on getting the right answer.
Discussing mistakes positively, helping your child understand that misconceptions are an important part of learning.
Asking questions such as:
- "How do you know?"
- "What makes you think that?"
- "Could there be another way of looking at it?"
- "Why might someone choose a different answer?"

This helps students become more reflective learners who are able to explain, justify and challenge ideas confidently.

What Pedagogy teachers have been working on

Activating students as owners of their own learning

Helping students take a more active role in understanding what they are learning, how well they are doing, and what they need to do next to improve.

This might have included strategies such as self-assessment using success criteria, traffic-lighting understanding, summarising learning, generating questions, identifying one small improvement, and using examples of strong work to recognise what success looks like.

Making formative use of summative assessments

Using end of unit assessments or tests or practise exam answers to help identify learning and to provide feedback to move students forward

This might have included strategies such as using ‘find it and fix it’, students using RED, AMBER, GREEN dots at the top of each page to identify levels of understanding, zero-stakes testing or students revising together assisting one another with individual areas of need.

Activating students as instructional resources for one another

Giving students more responsibility

This might have included strategies such as Ladder of feedback, Best composite answer, Traffic lighting peers’ work, student lesson review and homework help board.

Learning intentions and Success Criteria

Setting clear expectations (e.g., subtracting three-digit numbers with regrouping).
Applying learning in different contexts to make it useful beyond the activity.
Describing quality work, for example through rubrics (marking or success guides).
Providing step-by-step scaffolding, then gradually removing it so students become independent.

Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Make less marking, while giving students more responsibility
Keep records of students’ progress that help teaching and learning

This might have included strategies such as margin marking, traffic light feedback, mastery marking, asking students three key questions, and giving time to find and fix their own mistakes.”

Eliciting evidence of learning: Finding out what students are thinking

improve classroom questioning and discussion
involve all students in lessons

This might have included strategies such as, whole class vote, No hands up – except to ask a question, mini whiteboards, finger voting, exit tickets, opening up closed questions, post it notes on a continuum, waiting 3 seconds.

To see what Pedagogy teachers have been working on in past terms, click one of the links below: