Quality Assurance: Assessment, Monitoring and Review
Principles:
Our assessment programme provides information on individual pupil attainment and progress. It identifies what each pupil, groups of pupils and Year Groups have learnt and need to learn next. It tracks progress against the National Standards.
This has two main purposes:
Formative assessment is planned, integrated into normal class activities and involves the children. It utilises observation, discussion and listening as well as scrutiny of work in books.
Assessment for Learning
Our assessment procedures support teaching and learning and are intended to benefit pupils and teachers.
For pupils:
For teachers:
The principles that underpin our assessment system are:
In order to be ‘secondary ready’ children need to meet the required end of Key Stage 2 expectations; this is broken down into key outcomes for each curriculum year. We use the National Curriculum objectives to assess outcomes for children at the end of each curriculum year.
Our assessment and reporting system includes:
All of the above will feed into the new Target Tracker ‘Steps’ which will replace our traditional Target Tracker ‘levels’. These will take place at class, phase and subject level six times a year, towards the end of each term and reviewed half termly.
Tracking progress over time
We will use codes to track pupils' progress over time, against age-related expectations in each subject area:
We use Tracking Steps which can be used to examine progress and attainment numerically (as an average).
More able children
For children who have securely met the end of year objectives they will be assessed as exceeding or mastering objectives for their age group. Rather than moving onto the next year’s curriculum, except in exceptional circumstances, these children will work on ‘mastering’ their knowledge through the application of skills in different contexts – they will be deepening their learning.
The depth and application of a child’s learning is an important marker of their achievement and progress.
Early Years - Nursery & Reception
Children in Nursery and Reception will continue to be assessed against the Prime and Specific areas of Learning in the EYFS profile.
Assessments will be based on observation of daily activities and events. At the end of Reception for each Early Learning Goal, teachers will judge whether a child is meeting the level of development expected at the end of the Reception year:
In September we use a new Baseline Assessment which is completed during the first six weeks of children in Willow Class starting school. This will be used as a benchmark to track progress as a child moves through the school.
Reporting to Parents
Discussions at parent, teacher consultation meetings in the Autumn and Spring terms will be based on the assessment system in place for each age group. We produce a written individual annual report for the end of the Summer term.
SATs (Standardised Assessment Testing)
These will have two aims – to provide standard information to parents and to give a picture of school performance. There will be different approaches to assessment through a child’s education and development, using the most appropriate approach for capturing children’s learning at each stage and to complement on-going teacher assessment:
• a short reception baseline that will sit within the assessments that teachers make of children during reception;
• a phonics check near the end of year 1;
• a teacher assessment at the end of key stage 1 in mathematics; reading; and, writing, informed by pupils’ scores in externally-set but internally-marked tests (writing will be partly informed by the grammar, punctuation and spelling test); and teacher assessment of speaking and listening and science;
• national tests at the end of key stage 2 in: mathematics; reading; grammar, punctuation and spelling; and a teacher assessment of mathematics, reading, writing, and science.