Assessment

From September 2015, schools no longer use ‘levels’ to show pupils’ attainment and progress. Instead, schools have been given the freedom to create their own ways of tracking pupils. The reason for the change is to allow pupils to practise what they’ve learnt. One of the concerns with the old ‘levels’ was that pupils never had time to embed skills and were always being pushed on to something else. The thinking behind the new system is that teachers can give pupils opportunities to develop an age appropriate skill set through practice.

Each year group (or ‘Band’) now has their own list of skills for Reading, Writing and Maths. Every pupil has a copy of these in the front of their work book. The knowledge, skills and understanding that are listed remain the same for the year. Each half term, staff will assess the children by looking at their work and also through formal testing. Government SATs tests will remain for Year 6.

Pupil attainment will be classed into 3 broad areas:

Beginning: Pupil learning is chiefly focused on the criteria for the band. There may be minimal elements of the previous band in which to gain further confidence.

Working Within: Pupil learning is fully focused on the criteria for the band. This is a teacher best fit decision but is likely to mean that the pupil has shown evidence of having achieved 40%-70% of the criteria.

Secure: Confidence in all areas for the band. There may be pupil learning still gaining thorough confidence in some minimal elements but the broader expectations for the band have been met.