Assessment
At Garsington CE Primary School, we are committed to giving reliable information to parents and carers about how their child and how the school is performing. We do this by:
Meaningful tracking of pupils throughout the year.
Ongoing assessments that link closely to improving the quality of teaching and learning.
Providing information that is transferable and easily understood and covers both qualitative and quantitative assessment,
Differentiating attainment measures between pupils of different abilities, giving early recognition of pupils who are falling behind and those who are excelling.
Assessments
Pupils will be formally assessed three times each year (December, March, and July) in reading and maths using standardised tests (PIRA, NFER, and SATS papers). This is alongside continuous teacher assessment including informal checking of understanding at the start of each lesson. In addition to this, we assess pupils' recall at the start of a unit of work and at the end to check progress. Writing is moderated regularly against year-group expectations in staff meetings. We also moderate with other RLT schools at least twice each year. No More Marking is used as a National benchmark for our writing. In reading, writing and, maths, pupils are assessed as working towards the expected standard, at the expected standard, or above the expected standard (greater depth).
Foundation subjects, as well as Religious Education, are assessed at the start and end of each unit to check understanding of knowledge and skills.
Children who are on the SEN Register and are either showing unmeasurable progress in the whole school system or are working significantly below, will be assessed using systems that show narrower margins of progress.
Reporting to Parents
Written Pupil Report:
Teachers will write an individualised report for each pupil twice each year (January and July). These reports will explain how your child is progressing and achieving and ways to support learning at home.
Parent/Teacher Meetings: These are held in school in October and March. Each parent will be offered a meeting 1:1 about their child.
Mastery Learning
In addition to assessing curriculum knowledge and understanding we also assess the depth of learning.
1: denotes an ability to recall a fact, follow a process or give a simple response
2: denotes an ability to apply understanding in a given context
3: denotes an ability to apply understanding in a different context or solve a more complex problem with prompts
4: denotes an ability to apply understanding creatively to unfamiliar problems and alternative contexts unaided
Key Assessment Points
Foundation Stage
· The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) profile assessment is carried out in the final term of the Reception Year.
· It provides an assessment of individual children at the end of the Reception Year.
· The Prime areas that the children are assessed against are:-
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Literacy
- Maths
The children are also assessed in two other areas:
- Understanding of the World
- Expressive Art and Design
The assessments from the Prime areas are used to decide if children have reached a Good Level of Development (GLD).
At the end of Reception Year, children will be assessed against the Early Learning Goals and will be either at an emerging stage, expected stage or exceeding stage.
Year 1 Phonics Screening Check
· The Phonics Screening Check shows how well children can use their phonics skills at the end of Year 1.
· The results help the school to identify children who need more help with letters and sounds.
· The check consists of 40 words and non-words that your child will be asked to read one to one with their teacher. Non-words (or nonsense words) are a collection of letters that follow phonics rules your child has been taught, but don’t mean anything.
· Your child will be scored against a national standard and we will inform you of whether your child has met the expected standard in the test. In the past the expected standard has been 32/40.
· Children who do not meet the required standard will receive extra phonics support in Year 2 and will be re-checked at the end of Year 2.
Key Stage 2 SATS (End of Year 6)
At the end of Year 6 the pupils will take tests to measure their progress and standard reached.
· Reading (one test based on three or four texts)
· Grammar Punctuation and Spelling Test (two papers)
· Writing (teacher assessed)
· Maths (two tests, one arithmetic and one solving problems and reasoning)
