Assessment
What do we assess? (Our intent)
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| 2. In school summative assessment
| 3. Nationally standardised summative assessment |
Why pupils are being assessed | To inform teachers’ planning and teaching as to whether knowledge and understanding is secure enough to move forward or whether further consolidation work or a different approach is necessary.
To plan for opportunities to identify children’s unique abilities and talents.
To identify those children who require support or additional challenge in a particular area of work.
To assess the depth and breadth of prior learning.
| To evaluate children’s learning and progress at the end of a teaching period.
To inform senior leaders, governors and parents of progress and attainment over a period.
To inform the teacher responsible for these children the following year.
To inform senior leaders, teachers, and governors how children are performing compared to national benchmarks. | To hold the school to account against a recognised standard.
To measure achievement between key stages. |
The things which the assessment is intended to measure | To know whether a child has understood the teaching or can demonstrate application of a skill or knowledge with increasing independence or confidence.
Retention of knowledge over time.
Whether a child is on track/meeting ARE curriculum.
| To know how secure a child was in their knowledge of the previous year’s curriculum and how ready they are for progression.
To be able to apply their knowledge in a more formal setting. | To inform school development planning/priority areas/CPD. |
What the assessment is intended to achieve | To support children in identifying what they’ve learned and identifying where they need to target their efforts.
To inform teachers of where children are in their learning. | To provide information to the following year’s teacher in differentiating the support given to children in the class to achieve positive outcomes.
To use question level analysis to identify areas of strength – and build on these, and areas of weakness – and address these. | To raise standards in core areas and drive forward school improvement.
To identify areas of weakness within subjects and address these.
To raise the standards of identified groups within the school.
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How the assessment information will be used | To identify which pupils to target for additional support, challenge and next steps or which areas of the topic to recap.
To improve outcomes for all children through enhanced quality of provision and quality of teaching. | To evaluate trends over time
To evaluate individual pupil progress within years and across Key Stages.
To evaluate cohort progress.
| To benchmark locally and nationally against expectations.
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Statutory National testing
During their time in school children will sit some external national tests. These are as follows:
- Reception Baseline (September) and EYFS profile (submitted in June)
- Year 1 – Phonics screening test (June)
- Year 4 - Multiplication check (June)
- Year 6 – KS2 SATS in Reading, SPaG and Mathematics (May) – externally marked. Teacher assessments in Writing, Reading, Mathematics and Science (June).
Results of these are reported to the Local Authority and government to build a national picture of pupil progress and attainment. This also allows us to compare ourselves to similar schools around the country.
Early Years, Phonics and Year 2 data is used to set individual pupil targets for the end of Year 6.
How do we assess? (Our implementation)
Formative Assessment against the Planned Curriculum
English
The National Curriculum (NC) and the Programmes of Study (PoS) provide the backbone of our formative assessment framework. We have developed a set of progression documents for English, the English Handbook, closely connected to the PoS study from the NC.
- The English Handbook provides the basis for all teacher assessments of children in reading and writing providing clear broken-down statements of yearly expectations.
- The English Handbook stipulates a benchmark standard for children on entry to each year group. Children not accessing their year group material can therefore be assessed according to their actual ability by tracking back through the English Handbook to previous year group expectations.
- The English Handbook is organised by strand so that teachers can also see strengths and areas of development for different areas within a subject. These are used in reading and writing to help plan next steps in reading and writing lessons.
Other Subjects
- All foundation subjects and the core subjects of computing and science have key Subject Mapping Tools that form the long- and medium-term plan of the planned curriculum.
- All staff are clear on what and when should be taught/ learnt for pupils in Y1-Y6.
- Flashback 4 is used in maths, science, history, and geography to support pupil’s memorization of the key subject (sticky) knowledge outlined in the Subject Mapping Tools.
Subject Mapping Tools comprise:
- Subject statement of intent.
- Subject curriculum map detailing the links and connections across the curriculum.
- Threshold concepts detailing the key concepts/knowledge that must be understood and at which points.
- Assessment learning tasks to ensure that children are assessed against the correct criteria.
Summative Assessment
The shared language of testing in our school is:
- Expected
- Emerging
- Exceeding
- Children working significantly below age related expectations will be marked as BNS.
Assessment of YR baseline
- The NFER Reception Baseline Assessment tool is used to assess children in mathematics, literacy (including Communication and Language) and the personal and social aspects of learning. This assessment is completed as soon as children have settled during the autumn 1 term. In addition to this, children are assessed, using observations and focus activities, against the new 7 strands of the EYFS Development Matters statements to provide a baseline assessment in all the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum.
- The need for baseline data has been recognised to assess achievement and progress across FS1 and FS2 - for those children who start in Nursery at St Mary’s, and specifically across FS2 in preparation for KS1.
- Schools are required to provide baseline information for the LEA, external agencies and DfE.
- Children are also assessed in their phonic knowledge using the RWI assessment tool on a half termly basis. Data from these assessments are recorded on the RWI portal.
- Each child’s developments and achievements are recorded in ‘Tapestry’. In Nursery and YR these judgements are made against the age specific criteria from Development Matters.
Assessment in Key Stages 1 and 2
Summative Teacher Assessment Judgments
- NFER Standardised Tests are used to support teacher assessment judgments. NFER Question Level Analysis grids are used to identify areas of weakness and strength to inform medium and short-term plans.
- For Mathematics, Reading and SPA&G we use the NFER standardised tests in Y1, Y3, Y4, Y5: autumn, spring, summer terms.
- We use previous SATs papers in Y2 and Y6: half termly.
- We are confident of the robustness of the test as they are drawn from a large sample size.
- Autumn term testing informs teacher assessment baseline for the year and informs class pupil targets.
- Spring tests provide mid-year data to identify whole cohort progress and children who need further support and intervention.
- Summer tests inform the final teacher assessment judgment for the year.
- Test results are collected in the autumn, spring, and summer term on the online NFER platform.
- Teachers provide a teacher assessment judgement alongside any test data submitted using the SONAR platform. This is especially relevant for EAL and SEND children, who may not access or achieve test results.
SONAR Online Platform: Tracking Pupil Progress
- Each term, three times per year, teachers will make a judgment as to where each individual child sits within the core areas – reading, writing and maths – of the national curriculum.
- Teacher assessment judgements are presented on SONAR online platform for each class split into Emerging, Expected and Exceeding percentages for key groups:
- boys/girls
- SEND/Non-SEND
- SEND 6/Non-SEND
- PPG/Non-PPG
- EAL/Non-EAL
- Gaps between groups are identified and pupils are then targeted to raise standards and close these gaps.
- Teacher assessment judgments are scrutinised for accuracy in Pupil Progress Meetings (PPM) each term and are supported by on-going in-school moderation.
Moderation
The process of moderation is an essential part of our practice across the school. Teachers are involved in the moderation process to ensure agreement on criteria for making judgements about work in the following ways:
- with colleagues in school.
- with colleagues from other schools within Slough.
- by attending assessment sessions run by Slough to ensure our judgements are in line with local and national expectations.
Triangulation
- We use a triangulated approach to assess the quality of learning of units of work and of pupil outcomes through regular learning conversations with pupils, book looks and learning walk drop-ins.
- Learning conversation with pupils about their learning in a unit provides teachers, subject leads and SLT with a good understanding of learning gleaned within a unit. Phase Leads are also expected to regularly carry out similar conversations with pupils informally to review pupil learning and to support teachers to review units of work to ensure the best possible outcomes.
- Subject leads, Year Leads, Phase Leads and SLT will regularly look at children’s books to assess depth and breadth of children’s learning in a unit of work.
- Learning walks are used to support judgements and inform next steps for subject leads/Phase Leads/SLT.
Feedback and marking
- Feedback and looking at pupils’ work is the teacher’s means of assessing pupil progress and of planning work to meet pupils’ needs.
- Quality and timely feedback indicates to pupils what they have achieved and what they need to try to do next / how they can improve their work.
- We provide feedback in line with the planned curriculum, the careful planning of which identifies the knowledge or skill to be learnt in that lesson or sequence of lessons.
- The best feedback should be constructive, timely and specific. We encourage live feedback in lessons, either to an individual, a group or a class.
- Good feedback will facilitate improvement of children’s work or move learning forward.
- In addition to feedback on lessons, pupils’ common errors are brought to the child’s attention so that they are able to improve on these too. e.g., incorrect formation of letters, common spelling errors/grammatical errors etc.
- Books are looked at every day to inform next steps and all work done by the child is acknowledged by the teacher.
Why do we assess? (Our impact)
- We assess to ensure that learning is planned to meet the needs of children so that they make progress by gaining knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
- Formative assessment ensures that individual lessons and units of work are planned to meet the needs of all children – regardless of their abilities, so that lessons are targeted to challenge and extend understanding. Work is focused to support pupils to make at least expected progress and meet nationally expected standards.
- Assessment at St Mary’s is fair and inclusive of all abilities; those pupils not on track are quickly identified for additional support. National assessment data is used to identify school improvement areas.
GUIDANCE FOR PARENTS
