Assessment at Harry Hotspur CE Primary School

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. As the ‘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 of 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.
• Local schools collaborate to ensure our assessment systems are robust through sharing of good practice and regular moderation.

The National Curriculum has set out clear expectations for what children should achieve by the end of each key stage and, for English, Maths and Science, has provided guidance as to when in each phase this content should be covered.

Assessments made by class teachers will be shared with parents / carers regularly.

Class teachers’ assessments will be informed by a number of means. In maths teachers will have use of data generated by the termly White Rose maths test which align closely to our planning scheme. This is used in tandem with the evidence in pupil books to show their progress against the age related statements. A summative assessment for the term based on this is recorded.

In reading class teachers’ judgements will be supported by evidence from the children’s books and their Star Reader / RWinc assessments. This gives a standardised assessment against a pupil’s age.

In order to make a writing judgement, teachers make an assessment from a range of pieces of writing against age-related expectations. We take every opportunity to collaborate on writing assessments with local schools, and more widely, to evaluate students’ skills in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and writing composition.

Year 1 and Year 2 Phonics Check

In June all Year 1 pupils’ progress in phonics will be assessed. Each child will be assessed individually by their teacher. They will be asked to read 20 real and 20 pseudo-words in order to assess their decoding ability. Any child currently in Year 2 who did not achieve the pass mark last year will also take the test.

Multiplication Tables Check

From June 2020 all year 4 children will sit an online multiplication tables check (MTC). This will assess quick-fire knowledge of all tables up to 12×12.

Key Stage assessments (SATs)

Children at the end of KS1 (Year 2) and KS2 (Year 6) sit papers for their SATs. In KS1 this involves reading and maths. In KS2 it also includes Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. The information from KS1 helps to plan effective learning within KS2 and the outcomes at KS2 support transition to secondary education and KS3. All of this data is shared with parents and passed on to the child’s next stage of education.