TANNERS BROOK PRIMARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT STATEMENT

Why do we assess pupils’ learning?

Our aim at Tanners Brook Primary School is for our children to know more, remember and apply more.  Assessment provides valuable information to help children, teachers, parents and school leaders to acknowledge, analyse and review achievements and progress in learning against expected standards. Our assessments inform our immediate and long term planning and they give:

• Our pupils - an understanding of where they are secure, what it is that they need to do to rectify any gaps and the next steps needed to extend their learning
• Teachers - the detailed knowledge of their pupils’ achievements which they can use to inform future learning, their planning and their teaching
• Parents and carers - reports on their child’s progress in meeting expectations and ensures that teachers, pupils and parents can work together to secure learning and raise standards for all children
• School leaders and governors - information that they can analyse and use to make decisions about future actions to improve standards, learning and teaching in the school

What are schools and settings statutorily required to assess?

Teachers carry out day to day, formative assessments and checks on pupils’ understanding and progress as part of their day to day teaching. Statutory, formal assessment procedures and examinations also exist to measure attainment against national standards. Our pupils’ achievements are compared nationally with all those pupils of the same age and against schools in the local authority and in England. These assessments include:

An Early Years Baseline

We assess the development of those children in our early education and care in three prime learning and development areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Physical Development; and Communication and Language; when they join our Reception classes

An end of Early Years Foundation Stage assessment

The EYFS profile assessment is carried out in the final term of Reception.  The main purpose of the EYFS profile is to provide a reliable, valid and accurate assessment of individual children at the end of the EYFS.  EYFS profile data is used to:

• Inform parents about their child’s development against the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) and the characteristics of their learning
• Help year 1 teachers plan an effective, responsive and appropriate curriculum that will meet the needs of each child

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 (below)
• Expected (in line)

The Phonics Screening Check

The Phonics Screening Check demonstrates how well pupils can use the phonics skills they have learned up to the end of Year 1, and to identify those who need extra phonics help.

The checks consist of 40 words and non-words that your child will be asked to read one-on-one with a teacher. Non-words (or nonsense words, or pseudo words) are a collection of letters that will follow phonics rules your child has been taught, but don’t mean anything.

The 40 words and non-words are divided into two sections – one with simple word structures of three or four letters, and one with more complex word structures of five or six letters.

Pupils will be scored against a national standard, and the main result will be whether or not they fall below, within or above this standard.

Pupils who do not meet the required standard in Year 1 will be re-checked in Year 2.

End of Year 4

All state-funded maintained schools in England are now required to administer an online Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) to all year 4 pupils.  The national curriculum specifies that pupils should be taught to recall the multiplication tables up to and including 12 × 12 by the end of year 4.

The purpose of the MTC is to determine whether pupils can recall their times tables fluently, which is essential for future success in mathematics. It will help schools to identify pupils who have not yet mastered their times tables, so that additional support can be provided.

End of Key Stage 2

Pupils take statutory tests (SATs) that assess whether pupils attain national expectations in reading, spelling punctuation and grammar and mathematics. We also give a teacher assessment in writing and science.

Our assessment practices will continue to provide information about pupils’ attainment and progress. They will still involve marking pupils’ work and providing written and oral feedback that identifies successes and the next steps for improvement. We will continue to engage pupils in the whole assessment process by building self-assessment strategies into our teaching. We will periodically track attainment and progress through in-class tests, teacher assessment and the formal externally set tests.

We balance the frequency of assessment with the need for making progress and although there will be times when these tests take more time than others, we will always endeavour to maintain a balance between learning and assessment.

Assessment can take the form of asking questions and interpreting answers; observing behaviours and responses to tasks; knowing if and when to intervene; and drawing on a wide range of evidence to build up a picture of a learner’s strengths and weaknesses.

Teachers use their own professional judgements to make regular (formative) assessments and one of three summative judgements at the end of the year for reading, writing and maths:

• Working towards expected standard
• Working at expected standard
• Working above expected standard

Foundation Subject Assessments 

Tanners Brook School’s curriculum is planned so that pupils make connections between new learning and what has already been learned. Pupils acquire knowledge and skills through a carefully planned progressive curriculum.

Assessments will involve teachers:

1. Using the unit Knowledge Organiser (subject specific content for each curriculum area covered) to reflect on the degree to which children have demonstrated and applied their knowledge, concepts, skills and vocabulary throughout the unit of study

2. Review and Recall Tasks: At the end of every lesson, children complete a review task based on the learning that has just taken place.  At the start of every lesson, children complete a recall task based on prior learning for that subject.  These assessments are gathered in a variety of ways, including, questions for every child to answer, partner talk, true or false statements, quizzes etc.

These two elements provide assessment opportunities at the start and end of every lesson and form an integral part of the Tanners Brook lesson structure.

 

What are the key features of our assessment procedures?

Our assessment procedures will continue to give attention to helping pupils to meet or exceed national expectations and achieve the highest standards they can over each key stage of their learning. The National Curriculum sets out what our pupils are to learn but we decide how we are to assess our pupils’ attainment and progress over the key stage. Our assessment procedures will:

• Make clear to all pupils our expectations in terms of learning behaviours
  • Set out the attitudes and behaviours for learning we expect of pupils when in the classroom
  • Show them how work is to be presented in their books
  • Tell pupils that they will succeed and acknowledge how and when they are becoming successful learners to establish self-confidence and good learning behaviours
• Share learning objectives with pupils
  • Use objectives as the basis for understanding, questioning and feeding back during the learning activities as well as in rapid review sessions
  • Use this ongoing assessment to inform planning and to make any adjustments to the learning objectives for the week and future weeks
  • Refer pupils back to prior key knowledge and skills from the knowledge organiser to demonstrate and review progress over time
• Help pupils to recognise the standards they are to achieve and have already achieved
  • Share and discuss pupils’ work explaining how and why they have met the standards expected
  • Share the objective of the lesson through the ‘today’s learning is’ section of the Tanners Brook lesson structure
  • Set clear and shared expectations about the presentation of work and model how this is to be achieved with examples to set out standards
  • Display examples of pupils’ work
  • Ensure appropriate support is provided to enable pupils to succeed.  For example, scaffolds, clear modelling and suitable adaptations for individuals

• Involve pupils in self-assessment and peer-assessment
  • Provide time for pupils to read teacher’s feedback and assess how successfully they carried out the tasks set
  • Give pupils opportunities to talk in pairs or small groups about what they have learned, what they have found difficult and what they might do differently to improve
  • Ask pupils to explain the steps in their thinking and justify their decisions and reasoning
  • Establish a classroom ethos that enables a critical review of work to be undertaken that is seen as positive and not taken as any personal criticism

• Provide feedback which leads to pupils recognising their next steps and how to take them
  • Provide immediate verbal feedback that helps pupils to identify mistakes, correct errors and take the next steps needed to move their learning on
  • Provide feedback in line with our marking and feedback policy
  • Acknowledge success and give positive feedback but avoid giving excessive or underserved praise
  • Ensure feedback is constructive and identifies what a child has done well, what needs to be done to improve, and how to do it
  • Identify the next steps for pupils

 

What procedures will be in place to ensure assessment is rigorous?

We will draw on the expertise that is available in our school, locally and within our Trust (HISP), and nationally as further information and guidance is made public. We will implement monitoring and evaluation procedures and maintain a continuing overview of the whole in-school assessment through:

• Monitoring of pupils’ work
  • Provide time for subject leaders to carry out scrutiny of work to monitor pitch and expectations, coverage, marking and feedback in books and to review pupils’ progress
  • Senior leaders will carry out learning walks and lesson visits, review books and interview pupils about their learning and steps to improve
• Moderation across year groups and phases of learning
  • Teachers will regularly carry out moderation of assessment and standards within and across phases
  • Set out clear expectations about feedback to pupils that everyone puts into practice
• Formal testing
  • Use past test or examination papers and commercially produced materials to provide an independent check on how well pupils are doing and to compare outcomes against judgements made using a range of other assessment evidence
  • Analyse these tests to find out where there are areas of overall strength and weakness in pupils’ knowledge in order to inform how we organise and teach this in future
• Pupil progress meetings
  • Senior leaders, teachers and the SENCO will carry out a review of pupils’ progress in each class termly and identify the extent to which pupils are meeting expectations
  • Analyse ongoing and past performance data using our assessment trackers to review and, if necessary, set new or revised targets for pupils to achieve
  • Use the outcomes of the meeting to target intervention for groups and to review the provision map for pupils across the ability spectrum
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of intervention and assessment strategies
• Professional development and support
  • Staff are regularly updated about assessment and reporting arrangements
  • All professional development links to the Tanners Brook Principles of Success (pedagogical model) which supports effective teaching and learning
• Parents evenings, meetings and annual reports
  • Provide opportunities for parents/carers to discuss their child’s progress and to highlight any key issues that are affecting the child’s learning
  • Update parents on changes to the curriculum and assessment arrangements, and identify ways in which they can support their child’s learning
  • Annual reports are given to parents at the end of each academic year.  These reports summarise the achievements and effort pupils have made during the year