Assessment at Little Hill

In April 2014 the Department for Education released 'Assessment Principles', a document outlining the core values all effective assessment systems should implement as part of the changes introduced with the 2014 National Curriculum.

'Government will not impose a single system for ongoing assessment’, it is up to schools to implement a system that can: ‘Give reliable information to parents about how their child, and their child’s school, is performing, help drive improvement for pupils and teachers and make sure the school is keeping up with external best practice and innovation.'

Our Philosophy on Assessment

Assessment should have a purpose at every level for everyone involved:

• Pupils should be given appropriate feedback on their learning from the formative assessments carried out by class teachers.
• Class teachers should be able to use formative assessment to support planning and implementation of a curriculum designed to meet the needs of learners.
• Teachers and school leaders should be able to use assessment to help ensure that the pupils who need specified intervention are quickly identified, appropriately supported and monitored, so that all can fully achieve their potential and no one is left to struggle behind.
• School Leaders should be able to use summative assessment as a tool for monitoring the progress and attainment pupils make, to ensure the school is helping pupils achieve their potential.
• Parents should be able to get a clear and accurate sense of their child’s achievement and progress, as well as areas where they can support development.
• Governors should be able to use data to ensure the school is supporting pupils learning effectively.
• Schools can provide data for inspection teams to show how children are performing.

At Little Hill, the children complete the following national formal assessments:

• EYFS – Baseline Assessment
• Year 1 – Phonics Screen
• Year 2 – KS1 SATs
• Year 4 – Times Tables Assessment
• Year 6 – KS2 SATs

At the end of the summer term, in each year group, each child will either be working ‘below’, ‘at’ or ‘above’ their year group expectation. At the end of the autumn and spring terms, teachers will project where each child is ‘on track’ to achieve – this is communicated to parents.

Teachers create their assessments of the children they teach through a variety of methods used in their daily teaching. A sample of this includes:

• Written and/or verbal feedback
• Child interactions
• Quizzes
• Mini-assessment
• Knowledge collection activities
• Observations – adult input available with modelling
• Individual whiteboard work
• Peer and self-assessment
• Free-choice differentiation of activity

Each term, children undergo summative assessments which supplement the teacher’s assessment taken from their work in day-to-day lessons. Class teachers share assessment information with parents on a regular basis. This can be through parents’ evenings, Data Snapshot letters or other conversations as necessary. At any time, parents can request to have a conversation or meeting with their child's class teacher regarding their child's assessments, abilites and progress.