Assessment

At St Joseph’s we have high expectations for learning.  Assessment practices at St Joseph’s recognise that all students can and do make progress.  Emphasis is given to recognising the progress being made by each student in order to encourage and motivate them further.

We are presently engaging in learning about the Learning Progression Framework and using PACT as a reporting tool.

Purpose of Assessment

• To improve teaching and learning

• To inform teacher and students of current progress and achievement and to identify the next learning steps.

• To provide a range of evidence to the teachers’ overall judgements (OTJs)

• To assemble such data as will make reporting to the Board and Community valid in order to inform future strategic and resource planning.

Gathering and Use of Assessment Data

Assessment will take a range of forms and may include observation, peer assessment, self assessment, written assessment, samples of work, anecdotal notes, and standardised testing.

Formal assessments are recorded on MUSAC Edge and E-Asttle.  Each child is monitored for reading, writing and maths with a termly OTJ update.  We have science rubrics to help with science moderation and in 2019 we are working on developing exemplars/moderation practices for social sciences.  Any children needing learning support, IEPs or external interventions have their own folder in the SENCO folder and all the information is linked into their individual monitoring form or to their name on our progress tracking spreadsheets.  All external assessments and reports are scanned to PDF and stored on the child’s digital folder.

The principal and senior leadership team monitor progress and achievement evidenced by assessment information alongside monitoring planning, classroom programs and listening to student voice.  This helps to identify areas for improvement, professional development, and resourcing.

Assessment and Reporting Schedule

St Joseph’s uses a variety of methods to report to parents and whanau.  These range from written reports, student-led conferences, teacher-parent meetings, classroom open sessions, blogs, informal communication, newsblog, and assemblies.

Reporting at St Joseph’s is designed to:

●      Encourage a two-way flow of information between home and school concerning the child’s development, social skills, personal qualities, progress and programme of work.

●      Establish common goals for achievement between student, parent and teacher.

●      Encourage positive recognition of children’s efforts.

●      Support the child as they take responsibility for their own learning.

Reporting guidelines

Teachers are readily accessible and available to meet with parents when required in order to facilitate informal reporting.

Teachers who have concerns about a child’s progress or attitude will discuss with syndicate leader and SENCO and arrange for parents to come to school to discuss possible courses of action - there should be no surprises at reporting time.

All reporting is based on accurate data derived from a range of sources both quantitative and qualitative -student voice is important.

Parents are informed about their child’s involvement in any special programs and how they can assist their child/children to reach the goals of the programme.

Children participate in the setting of goals and in evaluating their performance in relation to the goals that have been set.

Parents participate in goal-setting and monitoring through start and mid year interviews and at other times as required.

Making Overall Teacher Judgements

St Joseph’s reading, writing and maths progressions are based on  curriculum expectations and the Literacy Learning Progressions, and National Standards illustrations.  We have moderated 30 students using PACT and found the judgements to be consistent with the judgements made using our own tools.  Making an OTJ is a triangulation of observation of process, conversations and assessment tools. Our aim is for assessment to be part of the learning process wherever possible.  We therefore make our OTJs firstly on observation and learning conversation evidence. Then we use formal assessment tools to support our OTJ or to question it. When formal assessment disagrees, more information is sought.

Each senior leadership and syndicate meeting has a section for moderating our teacher judgements regarding progress.  We update our OTJs mid and end of year.

Our moderation practices need to be good so we can reliably and accurately say for instance, "This writer is working overall at the expected level for year 6 and I know this through all the information and tracking that's been done during the term that is clearly visible both to myself and the learner."  That means both the teacher and the learner need clear knowledge of what learning looks like at the expected level, and below and above.

Even though we are talking about overall curriculum levels we should focus on the characteristics for each level as illustrated through various illustrations.

We are not making a judgement through using a standardised test.  That is only there to confirm or check our judgements. To make good use of standardised tests they need to be part of the formative development of the child - every child should know the result of every test they take, and what it means and what they can do about it.  From leadership perspective, consistently-used standardised tests are a good way of doing simple tracking over time, but they only provide the flags to show where we need to dig deeper. The main part of our tracking is through our progress forms.

Where can a child go in your class to show what a good piece of work at their level looks like? 

Overall teacher judgements guidelines

We use triangulated evidence in order to provide a "best fit."  

How we moderate

We use work samples and anecdotal formative assessment notes.  We meet in team groups with teachers from the level above and below.  This is done at least twice a year in the core curriculum and once a year in other curriculum areas so that we can make good decisions about where to position our children.  It also enables us to be clear on where all children are operating and what we need for their next steps.

We can use this time as a time to indicate when progress is being made and what contributed to the progress.  Also when progress is not being made, to self-evaluate and review for improvement. This can lead into more timely redistribution of resources and expertise when needed.

The principal cross-checks  judgements and addresses any discrepancies.  The teacher judgement always overrides a one-off test but there needs to be a sound explanation for inconsistency. 

The principal also checks a selection of work samples of children as a final check and has discussions with children regarding their progress and achievement to see the children’s perspective, especially for any borderline judgements.

We have now started to moderate our judgement across our community of learning.

Assessment in RE

Diagnostic assessment in RE: Informal testing of the whole class.  This could be through a class discussion about the strand, asking children for their questions on the upcoming strand, or doing a KWI chart (know, want to now, interested in), or showing some pictures relating to the strand to start discussion.  The key ideas and final open ended questions will already have been decided and the children's discussions/questions will need to be analysed in terms of these key ideas. For example, one key idea will be that Jesus was a real man, a historical figure and if children show no understanding of what life was like in the Holy Land at the time Jesus lived, we will know that some of this will need to be covered, whether or not it is the curriculum for their level.

Summative assessment in RE can be shared with children at the beginning of the learning so that throughout the learning they can relate their learning back to the key ideas and think about how they are going to show their understanding.  It will be simple questions or statements which the child can answer in any way they want. Criteria will be made in advance to judge the quality of the answers. We are tracking progress and achievement over a three year cycle 2015-17 to assess the impact of our key ideas on student understanding.

Reporting to Board

The purpose of reporting to the Board is to keep the Board informed about overall student progress.  This helps the Board to plan and resource strategically for improvement and maintenance.