Establish School Wide Standards.
If schools wish to improve the quality of student presentation they need as a staff to establish a basic set of expectations and guidelines so as to develop a sense of consistency throughout the school and then to use these as a baseline to encourage innovation and ingenuity.
The challenge is for teachers at each level to establish what is to be expected. They then to discuss their ideas with the teachers of the class levels that pass on students to them and with the teachers they pass their students on to. Such things as basic book formats, marking procedures and different ways of presenting information need to be considered. At one school all students write in black biro, edit their own work in red and teachers comment with blue.
Each class teacher needs to establish clear expectations as soon as possible in the year so students can then begin to work to continually improve their presentation based on known criteria. Each student needs to develop an understanding of the need for continual quality improvement. A simple question they can ask themselves is, ‘Is my last page better than the one before - why - and what will I need to do to improve tomorrow? This establishes simple goal setting. Presentation skills will also include visual layout designs, how to develop simple charts and how to include quality focussed illustrations. School Journals and school reference books could be referred to for examples. If these presentation procedures are established early in the year then teachers can then focus for the rest of the year on improving the student’s quality thinking and research skills.
If these procedures are followed student book and chart work will show observable qualitative improvement. Best samples can be kept in a portfolio. One school used an old filing cabinet and each student had their own file for dated finished work from across the curriculum. In some schools the student books themselves are regarded as 'portfolios' sent home once a term for parent comment. With the advent of computers at another school the students have a 50 page clear file in which they include both computer developed work as well as hand written material.