Assessment
What are our Assessment Principles?
Formative assessment is at the heart of how we assess pupils at our school. Using the principles of Dylan Wiliam, we know that this allows teachers and pupils to understand their learning and target next steps effectively.
This is based on the following principles:
Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions
Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Activating students as learning resources for one another
Activating students as owners of their own learning
Our curriculum is designed so that all learning is sequenced in small steps towards a clear end point. Skills and knowledge are tracked in all subjects so that the impact of teaching and learning can be measured for all pupils.
If a child or group of children are shown to have gaps in learning our first response is to adapt the teaching and learning. This may mean providing further scaffolding, reteach or reframe a concept or provide timely one-off intervention. The question and feedback opportunities in class allows teachers to gauge what the best course of action is.
For those who still need further support, we will use more comprehensive assessment tools to diagnose the learning need. This may mean that children may then be given specific learning plans and/or interventions to address the gap. These interventions have clear objectives and time limits to avoid impact on a child’s access to the wider curriculum.
Statutory Assessments
Reception
Children take the Reception Baseline assessment when they have settled into school. This will be used as a progress measure in the future and the children reach Year 6.
Pupils do not ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment; it provides a snapshot of where they are when they start school in the reception year. The results of the assessment will not be used by government to track or label individual pupils, or to judge the performance of early years settings. We will use the data from the assessment to create a baseline for school-level progress measures for primary schools. This will show the progress pupils make from reception until the end of key stage 2 in year 6.
At the end of reception, parents receive information on their child's attainment in relation to the Early Learning Goals. This is reported directly to parents and forms part of the annual report.
Year One
Pupils are assessed in their Phonics Development, usually in June. Children who do not meet the Phonics Standard will have to sit the test in year two to check they have met the minimum standard.
Year Two
In 2024, pupils may sit the 'now optional' key stage one tests provided by the Government (Reading, Writing, Mathematics) and they may be used to make an informed Teacher Assessment judgement of their standards. This happens across the month of May. We await the latest information for 2023/24, but the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) will replace the KS1 assessments for primary progress measures.
Year 4
Children in Year 4 are assessed on all multiplication tables up to 12x12. They complete an online assessment in June which consists of 25 random questions. The children have 6 seconds to answer each question. The expectation is for all children to answer every question correctly.
Year Six
Pupils are formally tested in Reading, Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation, and Mathematics. This is a designated week in May. Writing assessment is teacher assessed against a specific criterion. This is a secure fit model, i.e., if your child cannot write neat, legibly and joined then they are likely to not meet the writing expectation.
All national testing is reported to parents/carers.
Supplementary Assessments
GL Assessments
At Bidston Avenue Primary School, we use GL assessments to check the learning against the National Curriculum. We use these to check the pupil’s standards against the national picture. Each pupil will receive a standardised score. We use this data to further support intervention and out of hours learning.
Reading
Maths
CAT 4 – The Cognitive Abilities Test (Year 5 only)
BPVS- British Picture Vocabulary Scale
PASS- Pupil's Attitude to Self and School
PM Benchmarking
When a pupil exits the ReadWriteInc programme, they will be assessed using the PM Benchmark system. The pupil’s progress will be monitored closely by the class teacher and will be discussed in formal pupil progress meetings. This enables teachers to diagnose reading issues early and support learning appropriately.