WINTERINGHAM PRIMARY SCHOOL
ASSESSMENT POLICY NOVEMBER 2014 (DRAFT)
AIMS
Give reliable information to parents about how their child and their child’s school is performing through:
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Allowing meaningful tracking of pupils towards end of key stage expectations in the new curriculum,
including regular feedback to parents
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Providing information that is transferable and easily understood covers both qualitative and
quantitative assessment and is consistent.
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Differentiating attainment between pupils of different abilities, giving early recognition of pupils
who are falling behind and those who are excelling.
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Ensuring that focus on the philosophy of ‘mastery and depth then acceleration of learning.’ Mastery
and depth is about going out on the branches before going up the trunk further. This involves
application and evidencing learning in a range of contexts. Acceleration is about going up the trunk to
the next level.
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Ensuring data is reliable and free of bias
Help drive improvement for pupils and teachers by:
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Linking assessment to improving the quality of teaching and setting ambitious targets.
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Ensuring feedback to pupils contributes to improved learning and is focused on specific and tangible
objectives.
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Producing recordable measures that can demonstrate comparison against expected standards and
reflect progress over time.
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Ensuring assessment feedback should inspire greater effort and a belief that, through hard work
and practice, more can be achieved.
Make sure the school is keeping up with external best practise and innovation through:
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Using assessment materials that are created in consultation with those delivering best practise
locally and are created in consideration of and are benchmarked against, international best
practice.
Method of Assessment
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Assessment serves many purposes but the main purpose of assessment in our school is to help
teachers, parents and pupils plan their next steps in learning.
We also use the outcomes of assessment to check and support our teaching standards and help
us to improve.
Through working with other schools and using some external tests and assessments we will
compare our performance with other schools.
We assess pupils against assessment criteria, which are short, discrete, qualitative and concrete
descriptions of what a pupil is expected to know and be able to do.
Assessment criteria are derived from the school curriculum which is composed of the National
Curriculum and Focus Education Assessing without Levels.
Assessment criteria are arranged in met, exceeding, exceeding+ and exceeding++, setting out
what children are normally expected to have mastered each year.
Each pupil is assessed as ……..
Where a pupil is assessed as exceeding the relevant criteria in a subject for that year they will
also be assessed against the criteria in that subject for the next year. For those pupils meeting
and exceeding the expected standards, we provide more challenging work.
Assessment judgements are recorded on an APP for O’track class tracker and backed by a body
of evidence created using observations, books and tests.
Assessment judgements are moderated termly by colleagues in school and by colleagues outside
of school annually to make sure our assessments are fair, reliable and valid.
P levels will still be used to assess children who are working pre-Y1 expected.
Children use green pen to self-assess their work and show progress steps.
Our Use of Assessment
We will use the outcomes of our assessments to summarise and analyse attainment and progress for our pupils
and classes. Teachers will then use this data to plan the learning for every pupil to ensure they meet or
exceed expectations. Teachers and leaders analyse the data across the school to ensure that pupils that are
identified as vulnerable or at a particular risk at Winteringham Primary are making appropriate progress and
that all pupils are suitably stretched. This is done through a varied set of personalised intervention. On going
dialogue to parents about their children’s attainment and achievement is crucial to ensuring children make the
best progress at Winteringham. We report to parents formally through mid-year pupil progress reports, end
of year reports and parents consultations. Parents and pupils receive rich, qualitative profiles of what has
been achieved and indications of what they need to do next. We celebrate all achievements across a broad
and balanced curriculum, including sport, art and performance, behaviour and social and emotional development.
Transition between key stages
Early years Into Key Stage 1
Assessment in Early Years Foundation stage tends to differ from Key Stage 1 onwards in several ways.
Summative assessment usually reflects the age and stage a pupil is working within, as opposed to that which
has been attained. Although there are specific areas of learning for reading and writing in early years there
are also other prime areas of learning that are specific areas of learning for reading and writing in early years
there are also other areas of learning that are relevant for both, eg Communication & Language: Understanding
and Physical Development: Moving and Handling respectively. Mathematics spans two aspects – Number and
Shape, Space and Measures. These are considered separately, not as an overall attainment in mathematics.
The transition grids draw together all the related areas of learning from Early Years Foundation for reading,
writing and mathematics and allow the teacher to make an overall judgement of which step has been attained.
Once a transition assessment has been made, this can be recorded and used to baseline future assessments
using any of the subject planning and assessment grids.
What we assess and when
Area of assessment NB
Formative assessment is
ongoing
Reading
Writing
Spelling, Grammar and
Punctuation
Maths
Foundation Subjects
Phonics
Summative assessment
frequency
Method of Assessment
Tracking
Three times per year
Year 6 Past Papers
Optional Tests
Testbase
Focus Education Criteria
O track
Three times per year
Focus Education Criteria
Focus Education Criteria
End of phase assessment
Past phonic screening
papers
O track
O track
Assessment, Moderation and Reporting Procedures September 2014 – July 2015
July 2014
End of September
W/C 13th October
W/C 20th November
2014
W/C 20th November
2014
W/C 1st December
2014
W/C 15th December
2014
W/C 9th March 2015
Assessment Process
On going assessment to inform judgemetns and standards throughtou the
year
DATE
Baseline assessment completed
Year Group Moderation
Interventions set up
for September 2014
Baseline assessment
completed to inform
planning.
Head teacher, Middle
leaders to report any
insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including
key groups
Share achievement
and attainment
Summative
Assessment and
reporting entered on
O track
Pupil Progress
meetings
Parents’ Evening
Assessment of teacher assessed
writing. Moderation with other year
groups.
Year Group Moderation
W/C 23rd March 2015
Data review on Otrack
for all subjects
Data analysis including
key groups
Review interventions
for following half
term.
Summative
Assessment and
reporting entered on
O track
Pupil progress
meetings
Parents’ Meeting
Head teacher, Middle
leaders to report any
insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including
key groups
Share achievement
and attainement.
Review interventions
for the following half
term.
W/C 27th March 2015
Moderation
May 2015
TESTING
W/C 8th June 2015
Year 1, 3, 4, 5 Testing
W/C 13th July 2015
Notes
Pupil Progress
Meetings
Early years parents’
evening
Review interventions
for following half
term.
W/C 23rd March 2015
W/C 6th July 2015
Reporting
Cross school
moderation
Year 2 and Year 6
testing
Head teacher, middle
leaders to report any
insecure judgements
Data on otrack
Data analysis including
key groups
Review interventions
for the following
September 2015.
Reports out to
parents, optional
parents’ meeting
Moderation
Moderation and standardisation is a key feature of successful assessment. At Winteringham this is done
thoughout the year and at every assessment point, between classes, across the school and with other schools
to ensure reliable, fair and accurate data.
End of KS1 and KS2 assessment
A teacher assessment at the end of Key Stage 1 in mathematics, reading and writing informed by pupils’ scores
is externally set but internally marked (writing will be partly informed by the grammar, punctuation and
spelling test); and teacher assessment of speaking and listening, and science.
National tests at the end of Key Stage 2 in reading, maths and spelling, grammar and punctuation and a
teacher assessment of maths, reading, writing and science.
For the academic year 2014-2015, year 2 and year 6 will be assessed and reported using the National
Curriculum Levels.
How we track achievement?
Language used
Below
Emerging
Working towards
Typical
Expected
Working within
Above
Exceeded
Exceeding
Applying skills in the context of other subjects
In respect, we are looking for the pupils’ ability to apply their knowledge in their learning in other subjects,
especially but not exclusively, history, geography and science. For example using pupils’ knowledge of negative
numbers to work out the time difference between a BC and an AD date.
A deeper level of reasoning
The ‘exceeding’ statements require pupils to use their reasoning skills. This enables pupils to give reasons for
opinions and actions, to draw inference and make deductions, to use precise language to explain their thinking
and to make sound judgements and informed decisions.
Using the objectives in context
Pupils should be able to make use of their knowledge when applying it to their context. For example,
considering the literacy or maths involved in their parent’s employment. If for example one parent was a
postman, the mathematics required in Year 1 would be associated with ordering number but in Year 2 it might
be associated with different weights of parcels etc.
Drawing from next year’s objectives
Some of the ‘exceeding’ statements will touch upon the objectives in the next year group. Where this is
happening it is where there is a natural link with the present year group’s objectives, for examples, learning
tables. More able pupils should find it interesting learning in the patterns associated with the nine times table
in Year 3.
Exceeding +
Exceeding+ is the stage that is applied to children that are more than exceeding. These will be ‘stand-out’
children that are accelerating onto more learning beyond their age-appropriate year group. Teachers need to
be confident they are teaching from the higher year groups and that children can use the knowledge and skills
confidently.
Where a child is assessed as ‘exceeding+’ the teacher should assess the actual attainment of the pupil. All
assessments should be moderated across the school; however children at ‘exceeding+’ require careful
moderation with teachers from the year group linked to the assessment.