The Ulysses Contract is a commitment device based on the idea we can anticipate the mistakes we will make and bind ourselves to positive action, tying ourselves to the mast to ensure we make it through an oncoming challenge. I became Head of Department at my current school during significant change: the first year of exams for the new GCSE English specifications. My biggest worry was how to stop Year 11 becoming overwhelmed by the huge content and amount of memorisation required by the new exams. On top of that, how to help teachers organise revision so there was equal coverage of courses and topics. When choosing what to revise, students will often be lured to the topic they like or know the most about and it is easy to see why teachers can be tempted to spend longer reviewing eighteen poems even though they carry the same exam weighting as one play. I wanted a system that would keep us all on course, a Ulysses Contract for no matter how busy teachers got or ready to give up students felt.
This system became a programme of spaced revision and exam practice that we have followed for the last five years. Every Friday, all Year 11 classes complete the Friday Exam (I know, catchy), a quiz or exam question. I calendar these so that I have an overview of the revision covered by all classes; I can also base this on each year’s results analysis, by placing more focus on a weaker area. This calendar of assessment echoes the curriculum as it tests students on topics they have already completed but are not studying, requiring them to continually review prior learning. The quizzes are a mixture of multiple choice and free-written answers and test students’ knowledge of plot, character, context, form, language and structural techniques. These are interspersed with exam questions that provide regular opportunities to practise essay writing, whilst building automaticity and stamina ready for the exam.
I wanted these assessments to be easy for teachers to implement and sustainable in terms of workload. Students mark the quizzes themselves so they can see what they got wrong and the teachers pick up on common errors through circulating as students take the quiz and discussion at the end. Each teacher keeps a mark sheet of the quiz scores to identify topics they need to reteach and notice patterns in student scores. This leads to more precise feedback to students and parents, as the teacher can advise what areas they need to revise more thoroughly. It also opens up discussions on revision from the beginning of Year 11 as we’re regularly asking students if and how they revised and can intervene earlier. There is no expectation that teachers mark the exam questions and we have used a range of strategies to help students generate next steps from these assessments, for example, self-assessment through codes based on success criteria, self-assessment sheets using checklists based on the mark-scheme and whole class feedback.
Flexibility is key to consistency. I share the calendar with teachers before the beginning of the year and they use this to plan revision sessions, homework and intervention as suits their class. For example, I will use a lesson at the beginning of the week to recap the topic and set revision homework in preparation for the Friday Exam whereas another teacher might interleave revision of that topic throughout the week. But as a department, we have a shared overview of what students should know at each stage of the year. Moreover, in the midst of hectic school life, we have a routine that keeps us on course and a clear route for Year 11s to stay on track.
The thing I like about this system is it has evolved over time through trial and error and input based on teacher experience. In the first year, students did an exam-style question every Friday and it became clear I had mistakenly prioritised writing fluency before knowledge retention. On the suggestion of the second in department, I built in retrieval practice quizzes so students could consolidate their knowledge before using it to write an essay. This also provided more time to teach and practise essay writing at word, sentence and paragraph level before students put all this together in an extended piece. The quizzes have been empowering as they provide visible success, focusing students on what they do know and how they can improve, quick wins that are often missing from English.
After watching Peps McCrea and Caroline Spalding’s ResearchEd session, this year I wanted this system to act as a Ulysses Contract for students to create positive habits. All Year 11s now receive a booklet in September laying out their weekly revision and homework schedule for the year with knowledge organisers and practice papers needed for each task. In the first lesson of the year, students focus on why they want to succeed and the journey they need to take towards this. The weekly schedule helps the teachers make the narrative of success crystal clear to students: follow this and you will succeed. It acts as a revision list and a cue for positive habits such as spaced repetition and repeated practice that we want to instil in students. With rewards (Star of the Week, contact home, public praise) we focus on making the desirable the norm so students see the success and choose to opt in.
Hopefully this is helpful as you consider how to motivate exam year students next year. Some of the quizzes, knowledge organisers and the revision schedule are available here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/anqaas75dkbwpxl/AAB66xxjytAFU0O9dhdbuUTaa?dl=0
Finding Our Words 