Assessment and Reporting
What Makes Great Assessment?
Dame Alison Peacock: ‘There are three key pillars of education: pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. For too long we have allowed the third of these to act as a dispassionate judge of our teaching instead of building our expertise as assessors.’
‘Great assessment enables both children and teachers to understand what has been learnt and identifies specific areas where misconceptions have occurred or where more practice is needed. Assessment that is used formatively, actively informs pedagogy.’
Great assessment is great responsive teaching. Assessment is inextricable from teaching, and the quality of one is dependent on the quality of the other
The Assessment Model at the Calder Learning Trust
Formative Assessment
- Classroom based formative assessments occur frequently, are low stakes and provide rapid feedback. This is the most common form of assessment in our classrooms.
- Formative assessment tests specific knowledge and skills to identify gaps and have an immediate impact on lesson planning.
- Formative assessment tasks are designed to strengthen retrieval and improve retention.
- Their aim is to identifying consequences/ a course of action (e.g. immediate impact on the curriculum focus and content).
Standardised Faculty Assessment (Deep Marking)
- Standardised faculty assessments assess students’ understanding of a unit of work but might progress throughout the year to test for recall of knowledge and skills across a series of units.
- Thought will be given to the range of approaches that we use as vehicles for students to demonstrate their learning.
- Assessments will provide evidence for the whole school monitoring of student attainment and progress and are linked to whole school assessment points.
Formal, summative assessment
- Formal, whole school summative assessments which are high stakes and infrequent. They test knowledge and skills across a wider domain
- The outcomes of these assessments influence our medium or long term curriculum plans. Their aim is to create a shared meaning of student progress by ranking students across a cohort.
Baseline Assessment in Key Stage 3
Pupils’ current attainment in Year 7,8 and 9 will be continuously monitored by considering their progress from their SATS tests, and/or from a baseline assessment (CAT test) taken in the first half term each year. CAT tests provide a nationally comparable standard age score which can range from 70-130, with 100 being the national average. As students progress through the school their performance in class, tests and exams can then be assessed against their relative starting points.
|
Baseline Indicator |
Mean SAS Score |
|
Excelling against National Expectations |
127 or higher |
|
Above National Expectations |
112-126 |
|
In Line with National Expectations |
89-111 |
|
Working Towards National Expectations |
88 or below |
Current Attainment
Each subject will have a current attainment indicator that will give an indication of how a student is achieving against national expectations. This measure is based on the work that has been produced, assessments in lessons and how the teacher feels the student is progressing; in other words, is the student likely to meet or exceed national expectations? And what potential GCSE grade might they expect to achieve if they continue on this trajectory to the end of Year 11. Further information is given in the table, which is also attached to the relevant reports
Current Attainment |
What It Means |
Potential GCSE Grade |
|
Excelling |
Classwork and assessments suggest that this student is working at a level well above national expectations |
8 - 9 |
|
Above |
Classwork and assessments suggest this student is working at a level above national expectations |
6 - 7 |
|
In line |
Classwork and assessments suggest this student is working at a level in line with national expectations |
4 - 5 |
|
Working towards |
Classwork and assessments suggest this student is currently working below national expectations |
1 - 3 |
If you have any further questions about the system, please contact us at the school address.
Key Stage 4
The reporting system at Key Stage 4 we will continue to report on current attainment in the form of a grade in the new 9-1 grade system. The progress grade will relate to how well students are working towards their current target grade or ‘route’.
Student targets for GCSE and vocational courses will be set according to a combination of baseline scores and their attainment and progress during Key stage 3. Teaching staff will be encouraged to amend a target if it is felt to be too low, to ensure they are aspirational. This may mean that your son/daughter’s has different targets for different subjects. Students will first receive their GCSE target grades in the Spring term of Year 9, so as to assist them make good choices in selecting their GCSE option subjects.
Progress
The progress column for students from Year 9 onwards will then indicate whether a student is likely to achieve their target. The progress levels are shown below:
| Above | Currently likely to exceed their target grade/route |
|
On |
Making good progress towards their target grade/route |
| Below | Making less than expected progress and unlikely to achieve their target grade/route |
Attitudes to Learning
Student effort will continue to be recorded as part of the tracking process. Teacher judgment is used to assign a colour-coded grade relating to a student’s attitude to learning
GCSE Grades
If any parents remain unsure about the new GCSE grading system, the graphic below outlines how the numerical grades relate to the old letter grades that were used.
Reporting to Parents
We will report on both progress and effort on a termly basis. A mock–up of the report for both Key Stage 3 and 4 is shown below:
