Assessment For Learning

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:

• to inform planning and teaching from day to day and over the medium and long term
• to allow teachers and school leaders to track and monitor progress, to hold teachers accountable and to ensure that all children fulfil their potential over time

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:

• to help them learn more effectively
• inform them about their progress
• enable strengths and weaknesses to be identified
• indicate the next step in the learning process

For teachers:

• indicate strengths and weaknesses in the teaching programme
• indicate next steps in the teaching programme
• indicate pupils needing support and extension

The principles that underpin our assessment system are:

• Every child can achieve: teachers at Rougham have the mindset, ‘What do I need to do next to enable a child in my class to achieve?’
• The National Curriculum objectives will be used as the expectations for all children.
• Children will make age appropriate progress – 12 months in 12 months.
• Teachers are experts at assessment - assessment will be effectively used to ensure the correct scaffolding is built into lessons to ensure all children achieve.

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:

• Ongoing assessment by the class teacher throughout each lesson, through questioning, observation and dialogue.
• Children knowing what they are being asked to learn and more importantly, why.
• Success Criteria are discussed and agreed with or formulated by the children during each lesson, work is then assessed against the success criteria.
• Three way feedback, pupil, peer, teacher with clearly identified next steps – this can be written or verbal feedback.
• Regular pupils’ work scrutiny.

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:

• Emerging or beginning
• Expected or working within
• Exceeding or Secure, reflecting that age-related objectives have been achieved and the child is working at a deeper level of understanding and application

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:

• Emerging, not yet reached the expected level of development
• Expected

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.