During, Not Just After

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Timing & Frequency in 03 Feedback, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

Feedback returned weeks after the work is a post-mortem: accurate, perhaps, but too late to change anything. Feedback given while pupils are still working shapes the work itself, which is the formative case Black and Wiliam made.

Proximity is strategy. Moving around the room during the task puts you where feedback is cheapest and most usable: at the point of the error, in the moment it happens.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

While pupils draft persuasive letters, the teacher circulates on a deliberate route rather than answering hands. Reading over shoulders, she catches the same weak opening in four books and pauses the room for ninety seconds to address it before it spreads further.

Try it

A way to begin

In your next extended task, plan your route around the room the way you would plan a question: who you will reach first, and what you are looking for when you arrive.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• How many errors you catch mid-task that would otherwise have travelled home in thirty books.
• Which pupils you naturally reach and which you consistently miss. A deliberate route usually exposes a pattern.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• Intervening in the moment suits some errors and not others; on complex thinking the guide advises letting the struggle run first. In-the-moment feedback is a timing choice, not a default.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• ⏰ Immediate for Simple Tasks For simple or procedural tasks, correct errors immediately. Shute found quick feedback prevents mistakes from embedding. Do not wait until next lesson to fix what can be fixed now. 03 Feedback · Timing & Frequency
• 🕐 Delayed for Complex Tasks For complex work, a short delay before feedback lets the learner process first. Immediate correction on difficult tasks can short-circuit thinking. Let the struggle do its work. 03 Feedback · Timing & Frequency
• 📋 Whole Class Feedback Read the set and identify patterns: common strengths, recurring errors, one priority next step. Teach to the gap, not to each paper. Sustainable for teachers; precise for students. 03 Feedback · Source & Direction
• ✍️ Mini Whiteboards All students write their response and hold it up simultaneously. The teacher reads the room in seconds: full participation, no waiting, no dominant voices. Works across all subjects. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

This is Black and Wiliam's central argument in practical form: assessment is formative only when it adjusts teaching and learning while the learning is still underway. The card’s attribution stands as published: Wiliam; Black & Wiliam.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Feedback.