Assessment Policy

AIMS

• To ensure that all groups of children make sustained progress in learning consistently over a period of time.
• To evaluate whole school effectiveness through assessment which measures the value the school is adding to the children’s learning.
• To benchmark the school against local and national standards.
• To identify whole school professional development needs.
• To ensure that underperforming groups of children are effectively identified to allow appropriate intervention.
• To report clear and concise information to teachers, parents and Directors
• To integrate assessment into our planning and teaching to inform future learning.
• To give children regular performance feedback & develop a child’s contribution to and ownership of their learning.

RANGE OF ASSESSMENT

We assess report and record the children’s progress in three ways.

1. Formative Assessment

This is an ongoing process which:

• measures the children’s learning
• informs our teaching and short-term planning
• supports personalisation of learning

We do this by marking children’s work using a whole school approach that encourages an on going dialogue through question and feedback. This happens on an ongoing basis and involves the children in supported self-review of their work.

The marking takes the form of:

• Verbal feedback which engages the child in constructive dialogue designed to support, encourage and challenge
• Written feedback which focuses on the child’s success and next steps with opportunities for student response in green pen
• Assessment for learning – The school is committed to assessment for learning strategies which are used throughout lessons, involving children in their own learning and supporting the teacher in future planning/structure & content of the lesson

2. Diagnostic Assessment

These are ongoing measures which help us diagnose the child’s individual learning profile:

3. a) Ongoing observation of the children across the school
4. b) Class context meetings held at the start of the year to set up strategies and interventions for achievement.
5. c) Student progress meetings which are held twice a year and used to review progress, strategies and intervention to ensure continued personalized learning.
6. d) Informal class based assessments undertaken by class teachers to evaluate impact of teaching and progress against key skills e.g. spelling, times tables.
7. e) Guided Reading Record tracking progress of reading groups.
8. f) Writing Portfolio tracking progress of writing for each child.
9. Summative Assessment

These are measures which register the children’s learning at a certain point in time, and show how much value has been added to the children’s learning. We also use them to track the children’s progress through the school and target underachievers.

1. a) Baseline Assessment which we administer at the beginning of School years as well as for children transferring mid-year from another school. This gives us our first measure of the child’s achievement and alerts us to their future needs.
2. b) Mid Year and End of Year assessments which benchmark the children in reading, writing, maths and science. The data is added to class tracking sheets and the progress of whole class, significant groups and individual children is measured to inform student progress strategy meetings.

Documentation

A wide range of documentation is in place to support assessment, and analysis of assessment.

A year planner and termly assessment cycle guide staff and also ensure that assessment provision is consistent and continuing throughout the year. Teachers need to be able to produce evidence of judgments through children’s work; therefore children’s exercise books should always be kept according to relevant policies such as presentation, handwriting and marking.

Class teachers keep all assessments for the current year.

A data booklet is compiled after both data collection points (Autumn and Summer).

A review is written after each data collection point (Autumn and Summer) and details the progress of key groups, classes and year groups and makes recommendation on moving forward for whole school, individual year groups and children. The review is shared with the Directors

Assessment tracking grids are used as an ongoing record and teachers keep these in folders in their classrooms.

Student Progress reviews produce further documentation every term.

Assessment for Learning (AFL)

The school has a commitment to AFL strategies which are used to gather pupil understanding and inform teaching. There is an expectation to see a range of strategies in practice through planning and lesson delivery and in marking. The school will commit to develop and support staff in best practice in the use of ongoing teacher assessment to inform teaching & learning.

Mastery

The AQ Khan System ha s“the expectation that the majority of students will move through the programmes of study at “broadly the same pace” and that “students who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content”. There is an expectation that students who are already working at the year group expected level will have opportunities to explore and deepen their understanding through a breadth of opportunities to apply this knowledge in different contexts e.g. problem solving. Therefore assessment for able children is based around depth and breadth of application before any progression beyond the year group expectation is sought. The table below illustrates how teachers can plan for the ‘Deeper’ learning

When planning questions teachers should take account of the Bloom’s taxonomy higher achy of questions which will support them in planning for ‘Deep’ questions.