Every Voice, Every Time

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Elicit Evidence of Learning in 02 Formative Assessment, 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

Whatever method you use to gather responses decides, before any pupil starts answering, who gets to show what they know. Oral questioning favours the quick and the confident; written answers favour fluent writers; a single fixed method excludes the same pupils every time.

Offering written, verbal, visual and digital routes is not variety for its own sake. It is about the evidence: a pupil who cannot respond through the channel you chose reads as not knowing, when the truth may be that they could not show it.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

Checking understanding of a novel's turning point, a teacher accepts a sentence, a labelled sketch of the scene, or a short spoken answer on a class device. Two pupils who rarely write anything hand in sketches the teacher can read as evidence like any written answer.

Try it

A way to begin

Pick one routine check you already run and offer a second way to answer it. One alternative channel is enough to see who it reaches.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Which pupils change when the channel changes. That difference is information about the method, not the pupil.
• Whether anonymity shifts the honesty of what comes back, especially on questions about confusion.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• More channels means more to read. Choose the checkpoints where the evidence justifies it rather than multiplying options in every task.
• Which pupils need which route, and when a pupil should be stretched beyond a comfortable channel, is the teacher's call. The card sets the principle, not the prescription.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• ✍️ 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
• 🃏 ABCD Response Cards Give each student a card: A, B, C and D. Pose a question and all students hold up their answer at once. No hands, no opt-out. The spread of responses shows instantly where misconceptions lie. 02 Formative Assessment · Elicit Evidence of Learning
• 🌧️ The Muddiest Point At lesson close, each student anonymously writes the one thing they are least clear about. The teacher addresses the most common muddy points publicly at the start of the next lesson. Two minutes; high value. 02 Formative Assessment · Students as Owners of Their Learning
• ✋ Hands Down Wiliam shows hand-raising distorts who answers. A small group volunteers repeatedly; the rest disengage. Remove hands and direct to named students. Every student should be asked. 04 Questioning & Discussion · Participation & Equity

Inclusive practice

The lens this connects with

Through the inclusive practice lens, this is one of the approaches that may reduce barriers around:

• Access and participation
• Participation and response

Technology second

Where technology fits

Multimodal and anonymous response tools, the approved ones in your setting, are where this principle most obviously meets technology: they can gather a response from every learner at once, in more than one form, and anonymity can make honest answers easier to give. The test stays the same as for every tool in this strand: the responses only count as formative once they change what you do next.

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

The principle comes from CAST's Universal Design for Learning framework: multiple means of action and expression, so that the method of responding does not decide who appears to understand. The card’s attribution stands as published: CAST.

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