WINTERINGHAM PRIMARY SCHOOL

ASSESSMENT POLICY NOVEMBER 2014 (DRAFT)

AIMS

Give reliable information to parents about how their child and their child’s school is performing through:

  • Allowing meaningful tracking of pupils towards end of key stage expectations in the new curriculum, including regular feedback to parents
  • Providing information that is transferable and easily understood covers both qualitative and quantitative assessment and is consistent.
  • Differentiating attainment between pupils of different abilities, giving early recognition of pupils who are falling behind and those who are excelling.
  • Ensuring that focus on the philosophy of ‘mastery and depth then acceleration of learning.’ Mastery and depth is about going out on the branches before going up the trunk further. This involves application and evidencing learning in a range of contexts. Acceleration is about going up the trunk to the next level.
  • Ensuring data is reliable and free of bias

Help drive improvement for pupils and teachers by:

  • Linking assessment to improving the quality of teaching and setting ambitious targets.
  • Ensuring feedback to pupils contributes to improved learning and is focused on specific and tangible objectives.
  • Producing recordable measures that can demonstrate comparison against expected standards and reflect progress over time.
  • Ensuring assessment feedback should inspire greater effort and a belief that, through hard work and practice, more can be achieved.

Make sure the school is keeping up with external best practise and innovation through:

  • Using assessment materials that are created in consultation with those delivering best practise locally and are created in consideration of and are benchmarked against, international best practice.

Method of Assessment

  • Assessment serves many purposes but the main purpose of assessment in our school is to help teachers, parents and pupils plan their next steps in learning.
  • We also use the outcomes of assessment to check and support our teaching standards and help us to improve.
  • Through working with other schools and using some external tests and assessments we will compare our performance with other schools.
  • We assess pupils against assessment criteria, which are short, discrete, qualitative and concrete descriptions of what a pupil is expected to know and be able to do.
  • Assessment criteria are derived from the school curriculum which is composed of the National Curriculum and Focus Education Assessing without Levels.
  • Assessment criteria are arranged in met, exceeding, exceeding+ and exceeding++, setting out what children are normally expected to have mastered each year.
  • Each pupil is assessed as ……..
  • Where a pupil is assessed as exceeding the relevant criteria in a subject for that year they will also be assessed against the criteria in that subject for the next year. For those pupils meeting and exceeding the expected standards, we provide more challenging work.
  • Assessment judgements are recorded on an APP for O’track class tracker and backed by a body of evidence created using observations, books and tests.
  • Assessment judgements are moderated termly by colleagues in school and by colleagues outside of school annually to make sure our assessments are fair, reliable and valid.
  • P levels will still be used to assess children who are working pre-Y1 expected.
  • Children use green pen to self-assess their work and show progress steps.

Our Use of Assessment

We will use the outcomes of our assessments to summarise and analyse attainment and progress for our pupils and classes. Teachers will then use this data to plan the learning for every pupil to ensure they meet or exceed expectations. Teachers and leaders analyse the data across the school to ensure that pupils that are identified as vulnerable or at a particular risk at Winteringham Primary are making appropriate progress and that all pupils are suitably stretched. This is done through a varied set of personalised intervention. Ongoing dialogue to parents about their children’s attainment and achievement is crucial to ensuring children make the best progress at Winteringham. We report to parents formally through mid-year pupil progress reports, end of year reports and parents consultations. Parents and pupils receive rich, qualitative profiles of what has been achieved and indications of what they need to do next. We celebrate all achievements across a broad and balanced curriculum, including sport, art and performance, behaviour and social and emotional development.

Transition between key stages

Early years Into Key Stage 1

Assessment in Early Years Foundation stage tends to differ from Key Stage 1 onwards in several ways. Summative assessment usually reflects the age and stage a pupil is working within, as opposed to that which has been attained. Although there are specific areas of learning for reading and writing in early years there are also other prime areas of learning that are specific areas of learning for reading and writing in early years there are also other areas of learning that are relevant for both, egCommunication & Language: Understanding and Physical Development: Moving and Handling respectively. Mathematics spans two aspects – Number and Shape, Space and Measures. These are considered separately, not as an overall attainment in mathematics. The transition grids draw together all the related areas of learning from Early Years Foundation for reading, writing and mathematics and allow the teacher to make an overall judgement of which step has been attained. Once a transition assessment has been made, this can be recorded and used to baseline future assessments using any of the subject planning and assessment grids.

What we assess and when

Area of assessment NB Formative assessment is ongoing / Summative assessment frequency / Method of Assessment / Tracking
Reading
Writing
Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation / Three times per year
Year 6 Past Papers
Optional Tests
Testbase / Focus Education Criteria / O track
Maths / Three times per year / Focus Education Criteria / O track
Foundation Subjects / Focus Education Criteria / O track
Phonics / End of phase assessment
Past phonic screening papers

Assessment, Moderation and Reporting Procedures September 2014 – July 2015

DATE / On going assessment to inform judgemetns and standards throughtou the year / Assessment Process / Reporting / Notes
July 2014 / Pupil Progress Meetings / Interventions set up for September 2014
End of September / Baseline assessment completed / Early years parents’ evening / Baseline assessment completed to inform planning.
W/C 13th October / Year Group Moderation / Summative Assessment and reporting entered on O track
Pupil Progress meetings / Head teacher, Middle leaders to report any insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including key groups
W/C 20th November 2014 / Parents’ Evening / Share achievement and attainment
W/C 20th November 2014 / Review interventions for following half term.
W/C 1st December 2014 / Assessment of teacher assessed writing. Moderation with other year groups. / Data review on Otrack for all subjects
Data analysis including key groups
W/C 15th December 2014 / Review interventions for following half term.
W/C 9th March 2015 / Year Group Moderation / Summative Assessment and reporting entered on O track
Pupil progress meetings / Head teacher, Middle leaders to report any insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including key groups
W/C 23rd March 2015 / Parents’ Meeting / Share achievement and attainement.
W/C 23rd March 2015 / Review interventions for the following half term.
W/C 27th March 2015 / Moderation / Cross school moderation
May 2015 / TESTING / Year 2 and Year 6 testing
W/C 8th June 2015 / Year 1, 3, 4, 5 Testing / Head teacher, middle leaders to report any insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including key groups
W/C 6th July 2015 / Review interventions for the following September 2015.
W/C 13th July 2015 / Reports out to parents, optional parents’ meeting

Moderation

Moderation and standardisation is a key feature of successful assessment. At Winteringham this is done thoughout the year and at every assessment point, between classes, across the school and with other schools to ensure reliable, fair and accurate data.

End of KS1 and KS2 assessment

A teacher assessment at the end of Key Stage 1 in mathematics, reading and writing informed by pupils’ scores is externally set but internally marked (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 reading, maths and spelling, grammar and punctuation and a teacher assessment of maths, reading, writing and science.

For the academic year 2014-2015, year 2 and year 6 will be assessed and reported using the National Curriculum Levels.

How we track achievement?

Language used

Below / Typical / Above
Emerging / Expected / Exceeded
Working towards / Working within

Exceeding

Applying skills in the context of other subjects

In respect, we are looking for the pupils’ ability to apply their knowledge in their learning in other subjects, especially but not exclusively, history, geography and science. For example using pupils’ knowledge of negative numbers to work out the time difference between a BC and an AD date.

A deeper level of reasoning

The ‘exceeding’ statements require pupils to use their reasoning skills. This enables pupils to give reasons for opinions and actions, to draw inference and make deductions, to use precise language to explain their thinking and to make sound judgements and informed decisions.

Using the objectives in context

Pupils should be able to make use of their knowledge when applying it to their context. For example, considering the literacy or maths involved in their parent’s employment. If for example one parent was a postman, the mathematics required in Year 1 would be associated with ordering number but in Year 2 it might be associated with different weights of parcels etc.

Drawing from next year’s objectives

Some of the ‘exceeding’ statements will touch upon the objectives in the next year group. Where this is happening it is where there is a natural link with the present year group’s objectives, for examples, learning tables. More able pupils should find it interesting learning in the patterns associated with the nine times table in Year 3.

Exceeding +

Exceeding+ is the stage that is applied to children that are more than exceeding. These will be ‘stand-out’ children that are accelerating onto more learning beyond their age-appropriate year group. Teachers need to be confident they are teaching from the higher year groups and that children can use the knowledge and skills confidently.

Where a child is assessed as ‘exceeding+’ the teacher should assess the actual attainment of the pupil. All assessments should be moderated across the school; however children at ‘exceeding+’ require careful moderation with teachers from the year group linked to the assessment.