Harold Court Primary School

Our assessment procedures

Children are formally assessed at key points across the primary phase these are;

Foundation stage - those who are making developing, expected or exceeding judgements in the prime areas of the curriculum

End of Year 1 - with their phonics understanding

End of Key Stage 1 (Year 2)  in Reading, Writing, Maths and Science- these levels are Teacher assessed.

Finally at the End of Key Stage 2 (Year 6) in Reading, Writing, Maths and Science. Tests are statutory for children in Reading, Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar as well as in Maths.

Assessment from 2016

A guide to how we assess ATTAINMENT AND PROGRESS - Click here

The government has removed National Curriculum Levels for describing pupils’ attainment.

The school decided to invest in the Symphony Assessment Package that helps to benchmark all subjects within the National Curriculum.  From September 2016 we have moved from this formal package to our own version and system – with the same name we are able to monitor carefully skill accomplishment and whether or not our learner are on ‘track’ for end of Key stage. For reading, writing and mathematics, children work towards end of year expectations where the end of Year 1 is defined as 1S (secure) or 1M (mastered) and the end of Year 2 is Grade 2S (secure) or 2M (Mastered) etc up to Year 6 being Grade 6S (secure) or as per interim assessments have shown - GREATER DEPTH. In each year (these correspond, loosely, to termly progress). A loose guide to expected attainment points each term can be seen below;

It is expected that children will move three defined steps through an academic year. In terms of progress that is 2 steps and 6 decimal points over an academic year – Emerging to developing = 1(0.2), developing to secure = 1 (0.4). Children working at greater depth will make .1 additional progress. (+0.3)

A rough guide to termly expectations

                    EMERGING           DEVELOPING                     SECURE

Research has shown that the expectations are slightly above old National Curriculum expectations in Key Stage 1 (about 1 term ahead) but that by the time children reach the end of Year 6, the new NC is almost 2 years ahead. This does imply that it is now far more difficult for children to reach the expected standard by the end of Y6 but that it’s a great opportunity for us all to raise expectations.

In the non-core subjects and science, teachers assess pupils at either emerging, expected or exceeding age related expectations

From 2016 we have introduced a decimal tracking system - whereby teachers will assess children to be working at 'emerging' in the autumn term but reviewing our systems last year and feedback from parents led us to ask - how much defined progress are our children making, where within emerging are they working? Therefore as you will see from our procedures each 'element' emerging, developing, secure, mastery has a decimal representation with % of skills acquired in order to be awarded the decimal score. We are confident this will assist everyone, teachers, parents and most importantly our children in identifying where they are working and what to do next to succeed.