Feedback as Design, Not Event
Plan feedback into your scheme of work: who gives it, when, in what form, and when students act on it. Feedback designed into learning from the start works. Left to chance, it does not.
The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Closing the Gap 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
Good feedback rarely happens by accident, and the closing card of the strand says why: feedback designed into learning from the start works; left to chance, it does not. Who gives it, when, in what form, and when pupils act on it are scheme-of-work decisions, not marking-night improvisations.
Designing it in also makes the rest of the strand affordable. Comment-only pieces, peer review, whole class feedback and response time stop competing for lesson minutes when the scheme already holds a place for each.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
Planning a six-week unit, a teacher fixes two feedback points before sequencing any content: a mid-unit draft that gets whole class feedback with a response lesson, and a final piece that gets individual comments with time to act. Everything else in the unit is arranged around those fixed points.
Try it
A way to begin
Open your next unit plan and look for the moment pupils act on feedback. If you cannot point to it, add it before adding anything else.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- How the designed feedback points survive contact with the term. What gets skipped under pressure shows where the design needs protecting, or rethinking.
- Whether pupils know the rhythm: when feedback is coming and what they will be expected to do with it.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- Design includes deciding what will not get detailed feedback. A scheme that promises rich feedback on everything is unlikely to deliver it on anything.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Sadler's conditions, Carless's dialogue and Boud's sustainability all describe systems rather than moments, and this card draws the conclusion: feedback is a feature of curriculum design, not an event that follows it. The card’s attribution stands as published: Boud; Sadler; Carless.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Feedback.
Keep exploring
Where next?
Back to this strategy in 03 Feedback, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Support is available
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.