Assessment

Assessment takes many forms in our school. Day to day assessments are made, ensuring children have understood what they have been taught and are ready to move forward in their thinking and learning. Children self-assess using a range of strategies against the learning objective for that lesson or at the end of a project. For example, during the day you may see children using traffic light trays or a ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ during mini plenaries through a lesson.

In addition to day to day observations, teachers also assess at the end of a unit of work or a project. In an integrated project this can, for example, be in the form of a quiz, or a true/false activity. This enables teachers to secure a judgement of children’s ability to be a historian or scientist in the context of what has been taught. Task design to extend and support is key for children to achieve success. Discretely taught units, such as phonics, spelling or maths is tested and assessed rigorously to ensure progress is being made at the expected pace. If children need extra help to ensure they keep up to the level of their peers, we run immediate intervention groups to target support.

Marking is part of assessment at our school. Learning is mainly talked about with the children and here misconceptions will be addressed. Marking is quick, with a symbol approach to let children know what their success was and where they need to try harder next time.

Reporting to parents about their child’s progress happens termly. Parents are fully informed of what is being taught through the project leaflets that come home with the children. At parents’ evening in Autumn and Spring term, parents are informed of their child’s targets and successes in learning. Children set their own targets with the teacher before the meeting. In the summer term, children have a ‘Record of Achievement’ to celebrate their progress and year of learning. Children take great pride in these and parents are also given opportunities to feed back their thoughts.

Statutory assessments happen at key points in a child’s time at school. At the end of Year R children are assessed against the EYFS Framework to see if they have achieved their ‘Early Learning Goal’ which is expected at age 5. At the end of Year 1, children are tested on their phonic knowledge. In Year 2, during the month of May, teachers assess the children using a mixture of class based assessments and tests. They report their teacher assessments in June. Moderators from Hampshire visit our school periodically to ensure assessments are accurate and carried out correctly.