Our Assessment Strategy

Impact is how we know that our curriculum is doing what we intended - that is are the children safe, happy, creative, learning and successful ?

Our aim is to use assessment as a process to help the teachers plan lessons to motivate, stretch and challenge all children in all areas of the curriculum.

We have developed a set of principles to support us in this aim. The assessment should:

• Have pupil voice as central to the process
• Encourage children to reflect and retain knowledge skills and understanding
•  capture what children know before and after a topic
•  Support teacher planning
•  Not take teacher time and focus away from teaching the pupils.

Assessment in English and Maths

• We measure the pupil's progress through seeing their progress in their writing, their progress in phonics and reading levels and their mathematics work.  Pupil workbooks provide good evidence for the impact of our curriculum.
• In Reception we assess the children against the Early Years Curriculum in reading, writing and maths. This assessment is ongoing throughout the year.
• In Year 1 and 2, a combination of standardised assessment and teacher assessment is used to assess the children against age related expectations in reading and maths.  Teacher assessment is supported by National Curriculum expectations. 
• In reading, maths and writing teacher assessments are undertaken termly, sometimes using a standardised test, at the end of each full term. 
• Parents receive a full and comprehensive report in July.

Phonics - June in Year 1

Children in Year 1 must take the statutory phonics check in June.  The children take the check individually with their teacher.  To pass the check they need to be able to read both words and "alien" or non-words using the phonics sounds that they have been taught.  There are 40 words in the check and the pass mark is released after the children have taken the test.  In recent years children have needed to correctly read 32 words to pass the check.

If children do not pass the check, they need to continue learning phonics in Year 2 and resit the test in June of Year 2.

If your child is in Year 1 please ask your teacher how you can support them with their phonics check.  There is a parent information sheet below.

SATS - no longer statutory 

At the end of the year, Year 2 children are assessed by their teacher against the Age Related Expectations for the Key Stage.   We might use SATS papers to inform these assessments, but do not report any of the test results to parents as the tests are a small part of the big picture.

Assessment of subjects other than English and Maths

Reception

In Reception the teachers assess the children as they learn to make sure that the next lesson is building on the children's learning.

A summative assessment at the end of the academic year is made to capture the children’s attainment against the Early Learning Goals.  This assessment will support transition to Year 1.

Key Stage 1

In Year 1 and Year 2 the teachers will assess the children at the end of each unit of work or "Project".  This information will be based on how the children performed in class and any work they produced.