Design a school-wide formative assessment system

Context

A school principal, assistant principal, or instructional leader who wants to design — or rebuild from scratch — the school's formative assessment architecture: the shared assessment calendar, classroom feedback protocols, coherence across subject areas, and shared agreements among teachers. This process is internal to the school and distinct from any formal state, district, or national teacher evaluation system.

Originally written for Chilean classrooms. References to the MBDlE, MBE Dominio C, OA (learning objectives), Bases Curriculares, UTP (instructional leadership team), and the Chilean teacher evaluation (Evaluación Docente) apply specifically to the Chilean system. The approach and prompt structure translate directly to any school leadership context.

Paste first

Before opening the model, have ready:

• Your school type and governance structure, grade levels served, and approximate number of teachers
• The subjects or grade bands you want to prioritize in the first version of the system
• What already exists: what types of assessment tools are currently in use, whether there is a shared assessment calendar, whether any formal feedback agreements are in place
• Available resources: instructional leadership team members, department or grade-level coordinators, weekly collaborative planning time
• Your target implementation timeline

Privacy rule: Do not paste student rosters, individual grades, psycho-educational reports, special education records, or any data that identifies a teacher in a performance evaluation process. The system design does not require any of that information. Comply with your local student data protection law when deciding what to share with an AI tool.

Act as a specialist in instructional leadership and educational assessment with experience in K-12 schools.

I need to design my school's formative assessment system. I am not referring to any formal state or district teacher evaluation — I mean the internal architecture of assessment practices we want to install in classrooms and across grade-level teams. Here is the context:

**School type:** {{school type and governance structure — e.g., "K-8 public charter school, 420 students"}}

**Prioritized subjects or grade bands:** {{e.g., "full elementary grades, with focus on literacy and math"}}

**What already exists:** {{briefly describe what assessment tools, calendars, or feedback agreements the school currently has — if nothing is formalized, write "no formal system in place"}}

**Available resources:** {{e.g., "one full-time instructional coach, two grade-band coordinators, Wednesday team meetings from 2:00 to 3:30 PM"}}

**Implementation timeline:** {{e.g., "install the system during the spring semester starting in January"}}

**What I need:**

1. A brief diagnostic — four to six points — identifying the most likely gaps between what I described and a robust formative assessment system, aligned with your school's instructional leadership framework as the standard for instructional leadership practice and your professional teaching standards' evaluation domain as the benchmark for the teaching practices the system aims to support

2. A proposal of no more than five system components. For each component, include:
   - Component name
   - What it is for (one line)
   - Who implements it and who coordinates it
   - Steps to install it (numbered, in chronological order)
   - How to verify it is working (an observable signal, not an abstract indicator)

3. A term-length calendar of milestones: what should be ready by the end of each month for the system to be operational within the target timeline

4. Two formative feedback protocols — one for teachers to use inside the classroom with their students, and one for collaborative work between teachers in team meetings — realistic for the context I described

5. A coherence checklist: three questions any teacher can ask themselves before administering an assessment, to verify that the instrument is aligned with the learning objectives and that feedback is built into the design from the start

**Output format:** Structured text with subheadings, numbered lists, or bullet points as appropriate. No generic recommendations — everything anchored to the context I provided.

Expected output

Real example (trimmed):

1. Diagnostic (sample): Summative assessment without formative scaffolding — no check-ins during the unit; teachers reach the test without knowing where the class stands. No shared criteria across parallel grade levels. Team meetings taken over by administrative coordination, with no protected instructional planning time. [...]

2. Components (sample): Component 1 — Shared assessment design protocol (SADP): ensures any assessment instrument starts from the learning objective with a success criterion and planned feedback. Coordinates: instructional coach + grade-band coordinators. Steps: (1) Draft SADP template in a team meeting; (2) Model its use with one subject area; (3) Teachers apply it independently and debrief in the next meeting. Observable signal: every assessment submitted for review has a completed SADP attached. [...]

3. Term calendar (sample): September: SADP designed and modeled in team meetings; first brief formative check available. October: first evidence analysis session with instructional coach support. December: shared rubrics validated before the 7th. [...]

4. Classroom feedback protocol (sample): (1) Teacher writes the success criterion on the board before returning assessments. (2) Students read their results silently. (3) Teacher names the most common class-wide error without identifying anyone. (4) Each student writes: "I achieved… / I am still working on… / I will do differently next time…" [...]

5. Coherence checklist: Can I identify the learning objective being assessed? · Do I have a success criterion and can I explain it to the student in one sentence? · Have I already decided when and how I will return results and what action I expect from the student with that information?

Watch out for

• The model may generate protocols and instruments using technical assessment language that classroom teachers will not recognize as their own. If the proposals use unfamiliar jargon, ask it to adapt the vocabulary to the language already in use at your school — protocols the teaching team understands get used; those that are not understood stay in a drawer.
• The model may propose a system that is too ambitious for the resources you have. If the initial diagnostic reveals many gaps, apply the suggested iteration before committing to all components — a two-component system that is well installed is worth more than five half-built ones.
• This prompt designs the school's internal formative assessment system. It does not address formal teacher evaluation processes (portfolios, recorded lessons, external review committees): those are distinct processes and no component of this system should be confused with summative external evaluation.

Suggested iteration

If the system is more complex than your team can absorb in a single term, ask: "Prioritize the two most urgent components and defer the rest to next year. Show me only the steps for the first month." If you want to co-construct the system with teachers instead of presenting it ready-made, ask: "Adapt the collaborative component to present to the team in a 45-minute meeting: what questions to open, what agreements to reach, and how to document them."