Nurture

The Formative Assessment Playbook

The evidence is in the room.

Formative assessment is the everyday work of finding out what students have understood while there is still time to act on it, and then acting on it. The research behind it runs to hundreds of studies. This playbook is how a school makes it part of every lesson.

Built on Professor Dylan Wiliam's five strategies of formative assessment, and shaped with his input.

Build your playbook What the research says

A hinge question

A teacher ends a lesson with a five-question quiz. What makes it formative?

  1. A. It isn't graded.

    Grading isn't the test. An ungraded quiz that nobody acts on changes nothing.

  2. B. Students mark their own answers.

    Self-marking can help students own their learning. On its own, it doesn't change what happens next.

  3. C. The results change what happens next.

    Evidence becomes formative when the teacher, the student or their peers use it to decide the next step.

  4. D. It's short and low-stakes.

    Low stakes help students answer honestly. The answers still have to be used.

Black and Wiliam call practice formative when evidence of learning is “elicited, interpreted, and used” to make decisions about the next steps.6

Each wrong answer points to a different misunderstanding. That is what makes it a hinge question. One look at the room tells a teacher who needs what.

What the research says

Formative assessment has been studied for decades, across subjects, ages and countries. In England, it has been tested in a randomised trial across 140 secondary schools.

Impact at GCSE

+2 months

Additional progress for pupils in schools that followed the Embedding Formative Assessment programme, compared with similar pupils in schools that did not.

The Education Endowment Foundation reports impact as months of additional progress against a typical year. Each segment is one month.

Strength of the evidence

Very high security

The top rating on the EEF's five-point scale for how far a result can be trusted.

70 schools took part
70 schools did not
25,000
pupils in Years 10 and 11
Independent
evaluation, with schools allocated at random
£1.20
per pupil per year

Evaluated by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research for the Education Endowment Foundation, 2018.2

0.4 to 0.7

The typical effect sizes Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam found when they reviewed 250 research sources: gains “larger than most of those found for educational interventions”. Many of the studies found formative assessment helped lower-attaining students more than the rest.1

“Right now the evidence is, there’s nothing you can do that’s going to have a bigger impact on student achievement than helping teachers make greater use of classroom formative assessment.”
Professor Dylan Wiliam Speaking with David Irish, Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust, November 20223

One big idea, five strategies.

Dylan Wiliam and Marnie Thompson organised formative assessment around three questions: where the learner is going, where they are now, and how to get there. Teachers, peers and learners each have a part in answering them.4

The big idea

Using evidence of achievement to adapt what happens in classrooms to meet learner needs.5

Swipe and tap a strategy

Strategy 1 of 5

Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and success criteria

Teacher, peer and learner · Where the learner is going

Students need to know what success looks like. Success criteria only help when students think about them: comparing examples of work and spotting what makes one better than another.

In the classroom

  • Comparing anonymous examples of work
  • Building success criteria with the class
  • Deciding the essential learning before planning the lesson

Nurture Learn: Dylan Wiliam's course on this strategy.

Strategy, technique, protocol.

The playbook gives every school the same structure and leaves the choices to the school. It has three layers.

Layer 1: Strategy

What we are trying to do.

One of the five strategies. Every school works from the same five.

Layer 2: Technique

What teachers do in lessons.

Specific classroom routines within a strategy. A hinge question is a technique within strategy 2.

Layer 3: Protocol

What the school does to make it last.

The conditions that let new habits take hold: how staff begin, how parents hear about it, how teachers learn together and how technology is used.

The school decides.

Teachers change their practice when they have choice, flexibility, small steps, support and accountability.5 So each school chooses its own techniques and protocols from a menu, and the playbook is co-designed with its leaders. It starts from what the school already believes and what it is required to do.

Build your playbook.

Choose a focus, the techniques and the protocols, then generate your playbook to print, save or share. With a school, this is done with the leadership team after a discovery conversation.

Focus strategy

Techniques

Protocols

Technology in the classroom

Free, and nothing to sign up for.

From a group of innovators to the whole school.

Practice changes one habit at a time, and lasts when it becomes part of the culture. The playbook runs over four years.

  1. Years 1 and 2

    Innovator Programme

    A group of teachers starts with the playbook. Each year, the school's practice is evaluated against two questions: are students learning more, and is teaching improving?

    Low Outstanding

    Outstanding means formative assessment is how the school works, whoever is in the building.

  2. End of year 2

    Whole-school workshop

    A full day on site. Two years of evidence shape the plan for every classroom.

  3. Years 3 and 4

    Whole school

    Leaders, the school board and parents are part of it. By the end, the practice no longer depends on any one person, including us.

Faster where it's earned

Schools that reach Outstanding early can move to the whole-school stage sooner.

For school systems

A system playbook sets the shared frame for every school. Each school then adds the detail its own context needs.

Two tools in service of the practice.

Teachers adapt at three moments: before, during and after a lesson.5 Nurture Learn and Nurture Signal are built for those moments, and for classrooms with or without student devices.

Before the lesson

Plan for it

Anticipate the predictable difficulties. Decide what evidence to collect, and when.

Nurture Learn

During the lesson

Notice it

See who has understood the essential learning, and adapt while there is still time.

Nurture Signal

After the lesson

Act on it

Check what has stuck, and adjust what comes next.

Nurture Signal

Nurture Learn

Professional learning

Five on-demand courses delivered by Professor Dylan Wiliam, one for each strategy. Teachers learn the techniques. The playbook gives them the time and the reason to use them.

Explore Nurture Learn
Nurture Signal

Checking for understanding

Hinge questions, engagement checks and exit tickets, answered on student devices or with printed response cards. The teacher sees every student's answer in seconds.

97%

of students responded to live checks for understanding in the Department for Education South Australia pilot.8

Explore Nurture Signal
Portrait of Professor Dylan Wiliam
  • Now Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment, UCL Institute of Education
  • 1998 Co-author, with Paul Black, of Inside the Black Box
  • 2008 Co-author, with Marnie Thompson, of the five strategies
  • 2011 Author of Embedded Formative Assessment
  • EFA Co-author, with Siobhán Leahy and SSAT, of the Embedding Formative Assessment programme

Strategic Advisor to Nurture

Dylan Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam's work has shaped how schools around the world think about assessment. Inside the Black Box brought the research on formative assessment into staffrooms, and his five strategies are the basis of the Embedding Formative Assessment programme tested by the Education Endowment Foundation.

As Strategic Advisor to Nurture, Dylan delivers the Learn courses, has advised on hinge question design in Signal, and has shaped the structure of this playbook: strategy, technique and protocol.

“Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.”

Dylan Wiliam, SSAT National Conference, 20127

Frequently asked questions

Still have questions? Talk to us →

What is a formative assessment playbook?

It is a school’s plan for making formative assessment part of every lesson. It has three layers: a strategy (one of Dylan Wiliam’s five), the techniques teachers use in lessons, and the protocols the school puts in place so new habits last, such as a whole-staff launch or a monthly teacher learning community.

What are Dylan Wiliam’s five strategies of formative assessment?

Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and success criteria; engineering effective classroom discussions, questions and tasks that elicit evidence; providing feedback that moves learners forward; activating students as learning resources for one another; and activating students as owners of their own learning. Dylan Wiliam and Marnie Thompson set them out in 2008.

What is a hinge question?

A question at the turning point of a lesson that every student answers at once, on mini whiteboards, ABCD cards or their devices. Each wrong answer points to a different misunderstanding, so one look at the room tells the teacher who needs what before moving on.

What is the evidence that formative assessment works?

In an Education Endowment Foundation trial across 140 secondary schools in England, pupils in schools that followed the Embedding Formative Assessment programme made two months’ additional progress at GCSE, a result rated very high security. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam’s review of 250 research sources found typical effect sizes of 0.4 to 0.7.

Is the playbook builder free?

Yes. Anyone can build a draft playbook on this page, then print it, save it as a PDF or share it by link. Nothing is stored and there is nothing to sign up for. For a school, the final playbook is co-designed with its leaders after a discovery conversation with Nurture.

How long does it take to embed formative assessment across a school?

The playbook runs over four years. In years 1 and 2, a group of innovator teachers starts with it; at the end of year 2, a whole-school workshop uses that evidence to plan for every classroom; in years 3 and 4, the whole school takes part. Schools that reach Outstanding early can move to the whole-school stage sooner.

Sources

  1. 1 Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-148. Based on their review, Assessment and classroom learning, Assessment in Education, 5(1).
  2. 2 Speckesser, S., Runge, J., Foliano, F., Bursnall, M., Hudson-Sharp, N., Rolfe, H. and Anders, J. (2018). Embedding Formative Assessment: Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation. educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk
  3. 3 Wiliam, D. (2022). The role of leaders in promoting more effective assessment. Webinar with David Irish, hosted by Nurture, November 2022. gonurture.com
  4. 4 Wiliam, D. and Thompson, M. (2008). Integrating assessment with learning: What will it take to make it work? In C. A. Dwyer (Ed.), The Future of Assessment: Shaping teaching and learning (pp. 53-82). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  5. 5 Galvin, A., Belcher, D., Mulholland, M. and Wiliam, D. (2026). Adaptive teaching: what are we adapting to, and why? SSAT. ssatuk.co.uk
  6. 6 Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 5-31.
  7. 7 Wiliam, D. (2012). Keynote, SSAT National Conference, December 2012, as reported by J. Tomsett. johntomsett.com
  8. 8 Nurture and the Department for Education South Australia (2026). Nurture Signal pilot report.

Figures are as published by each source at the date shown.

Make feedback matter

Start with one strategy.

Every playbook begins with a conversation about what your school believes, what it is required to do, and where it wants to be in four years. Nurture works with schools and school systems in Ireland, the UK, Australia and the Middle East.

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