Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
OUR LADY IMMACULATE PRIMARY SCHOOL
ASSESSMENT POLICY 2023
Broader Assessment Approach needed with a ‘Mastery’ approach
A mastery approach is about children’s ability not only to retain what they know but the ability to use this
information in differing contexts at distance from direct teacher input, as well as the ability to be self
regulating. It is the interaction of these three domains which will ensure pupils progress through a
‘mastery’ curriculum.
This can be achieved by ensuring the school’s curriculum recognises the need for both breadth and depth
of study to embed pupil learning and developing their ‘mastery’ of it. Whilst subjects in the curriculum
allows us to organise the content domain, it should be recognised that the cognitive domain sits above all
subjects but connects them all. The personal, social and emotional aspects of learning are referred to as
‘the hidden curriculum’. Considering it importance to the ‘mastery’ approach it is no coincidence that this
area is being given statutory status.
Developing pupils personal, social and emotional aspects of learning
This must be embedded across the curriculum and not just in specific subjects or in specific lessons.
Teachers can foster this in 3 ways
Pupils engaging in learning – this will be demonstrated through;
• ‘Finding out and exploring’ is concerned with the child’s ability to apply their prior learning ‘Using
what they know in their learning’ describes how children bring together their current
understandings, combining, refining and exploring their learning in creative ways in a new
context.
• ‘Being willing to have a go’ refers to the child: seeking challenge, having a ‘can do’ attitude,
being willing to take a risk in new experiences and developing the view that failures are
opportunities to learn.
Pupils being active in their learning – this will be demonstrated through;
• ‘Being involved and concentrating’ describes the intensity of attention that arises from children
engaged in following a line of interest in their activities.
• ‘Keeping on trying’ refers to: the importance of persistence even in the face of challenge or
difficulties, an element of purposeful control which supports resilience.
• ‘Enjoying achieving what they set out to do’ builds on the intrinsic motivation which supports
long-term success. It refers to the reward of meeting one’s own goals, rather than relying on the
approval of others. Closely linked with self-regulation.
Thinking critically- this will be demonstrated through
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Date of next review: Spring 2025
• ‘Having their own ideas’ covers the critical area of creativity – generating new ideas and
approaches in all areas of endeavour. Being inventive allows children to seek challenge, and to
explore ways of solving these.
• ‘Using what they already know to learn new things’: develop and link concepts, find meaning in
sequence, cause and effect.
• ‘Choosing ways to do things and finding new ways’ involves children in making choices and
decisions about how to approach tasks, planning and monitoring what to do and being able to
change strategies.
The Link between Curriculum and Assessment
We see the school’s curriculum as the primary tool to ensure children know and remember more. The
curriculum provides the framework of what we intend children to learn. The curriculum intent allows us
to create the outcomes against which we can assess whether children have achieved the intent or not.
Diagnostic Assessments are vital in ensuring children are retaining their learning. In this way they ensure
that children have remembered what they have learnt overtime. These assessments take place at the
beginning of new learning and check that the prior learning has been retained. Teachers would use this
information to decide if a child needs to revisit, consolidate or move on in the learning. These
assessments may be verbal, in the form of a low stakes quiz or will directly linked to the key knowledge
children have collected in their books during a topic (at the back of History books)
Formative assessment judgements allow us to take one of 3 actions on implementing the curriculum
when reviewing learning. The intent is achieved and the child moves on in their learning.
The intent is partially achieved and the child needs further practice to consolidate their learning through
retrieval practice.
Finally the child does not achieve the intent and so has to revisit the learning before moving on. For each
outcome this would involve providing feedback to the learner as well as informing future planning.
Summative assessments at the end of units of work would ensure that pupils can recall their prior
learning ensuring that these reviews of learning support curriculum implementation by informing the
teacher about what to teach next.
Overtime there is a need to check children’s understanding and evaluate the impact of the curriculum on
children’s learning. These will refer to the school’s broad curriculum intent for a year group or national
expectations when appropriate, to review learning and to support future curriculum implementation.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Assessment Policy
High quality assessment practice is not merely about achieving particular outcomes it is about preparing
pupils to become self-regulating learners and to achieve this by setting high expectations of themselves.
This will be achieved by ensuring children embedded their learning and apply it across the curriculum.
The purpose of this policy is to support:
• staff in ensuring a consistent vision of assessment in our school
• Learning must be embedded to be retained by pupil’s overtime and demonstrated in different
subjects or contexts to deepen it.
• parents in beginning to understand how well their child is doing compared to age related
expectations
• staff in maintaining and raising the standards of achievement, and attainment, for all our pupils
over time
Primary purpose of assessment in Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary school is to help the learner
make progress and reach their potential. This will be achieved by considering the following:
• assessment information is gathered from looking at what pupils already know, understand and
can do to inform future instruction
• will be informed by their parents/previous providers as appropriate
• be used to plan appropriate teaching and learning
• to identify pupils who are falling behind in their learning
• to identify pupils who may need additional support to ‘catch up’ with their peers
• Enable all pupils to make progress and achieve well compared to age related expectations from
the curriculum.
• Enable pupils to understand how to improve as a result of useful feedback, written or oral, from
teachers, peers or self.
The principles of in school assessment
The school will make good use of formative, diagnostic and summative assessment approaches and
ensure the correct balance between these approaches. At the core of this policy is the recognition that
high quality formative assessment will have a greater impact on rates of pupil progress than too frequent
summative assessments.
Formative Assessment is not just assessment that involves more than only marking and feeding back
judgements, but ensuring that instruction is tailored to pupils needs.
Diagnostic assessment is bound into the next steps, looks forward as well as back, and is closely allied to
forward planning. This will be used after a period of teaching and to link units of work to show progress.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
By the use of summative post learning assessment tasks the pupil progress can be judged against the
intended learning for the unit of work. Teachers again review learning and judge if revisiting or
consolidation is needed before moving on. This information can be used to identify the impact that the
curriculum is having on pupils learning.
These tasks and tests are against the school’s curriculum not commercial ‘off the shelf’ assessments
which may not match the intended learning outcomes of the school’s curriculum and hence will not be
valid to judge progress or purposeful for next steps.
This will also allow the school to change the culture of ‘assessment’ from constant recording for
accountability to informing instruction and the curriculum. The time this frees up for staff will allow them
to focus clearly on improving the quality of teaching that pupils receive.
In this way pupil’s learning will become embedded and rates of progress will be accelerated through the
curriculum due to high expectations set by the staff and schools curriculum.
This policy intends to:
• make clear our vision of the role of assessment as part of teaching and learning in our school and
provide clear guidelines for the implementation of the policy • Ensure assessment is purposeful,
valid and reliable for analysis
• Be clear on the role of diagnostic, formative and summative assessments in informing instruction
and providing feedback to the learner.
• Ensure that some assessments take place at distance from direct teaching to ensure pupils have
retained their learning
• When assessments should be recorded and when the purpose of the assessment does not
require it to be recorded.
• Ensure that pupil misconception are diagnosed and challenged
• Provide clear guidelines for the implementation of the policy
• Reduce teacher workload by using effective sampling techniques.
• make transparent the procedures in place for monitoring and evaluating assessment practices
• define clear responsibilities in relation to assessment
• provide clear definitions and purposes for different types of assessment Assessment in this
school will:
• Enable individual pupils to make progress in their learning and that their learning is retained over
time.
• relate to shared learning intent and intended learning outcomes
• be underpinned by confidence that every child can improve •
• help all pupils to demonstrate what they know, understand and are able to do independently
appropriate to their age
• involves success criteria that is shared and that work is assessed against this
• include reliable judgements about how learners are performing, related when appropriate to
national standards
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
• Involves both teacher and pupils reviewing and reflecting upon assessment information and
considering if they need to revisit, consolidate or move on in their learning.
• Provide timely feedback which leads to pupils recognising the ‘next steps’ in their learning and
how to work towards achieving these as part of the teaching process.
• enable teachers to plan more effectively by using assessment outcome to plan future instruction
• provide us with information to evaluate our work, and amend planning at whole school, class
and individual pupil levels
• enable parents to understand and be involved in their child’s progress
• ensure that our practices in this area are fully inclusive
Roles & Responsibilities (see flow diagram summary in back of the policy)
Teachers and Teaching assistants are responsible for carrying out diagnostic, formative and summative
assessments with individual pupils, sample groups and whole classes, depending on the context. These
outcomes will be shared with pupils as part of an on-going assessment dialogue with pupils about their
learning progress.
The outcomes of periodic summative assessments in the all subjects are reported to the SMT as outlined
in the school’s curriculum policy, these outcomes will be shared with parents at Parent Consultation
meetings and in each pupil’s Annual Report. These reports will refer to the schools benchmarking
approach.
For core subjects pupils are placed into 5 benchmarks indicated by the outcomes of their periodic
assessments. In the foundation subjects the children are placed into 3 broad groups related to age
related expectations.
Assessment Leader is responsible for ensuring that:
• Each class teacher uses Programme of Study (POS) as their basis for planning the objectives
against which the performance of individuals and vulnerable groups will be assessed as the
schools on – going assessment.
• Periodic summative assessment tasks are used to inform instruction.
• All staff are familiar with current assessment policy and current practice.
• Identifying pupil groups who are vulnerable to underachievement in relation to age related
expectations and prior attainment in the core subjects.
• Use QLA at KS1 and KS2 to identify areas of the curriculum in need of development and share
with staff.
• Using outcomes from assessments to prioritise the key curriculum areas which are leading to the
underachievement of pupils across the school.
• There will be reporting to Governors on all key aspects of pupil progress and attainment,
including current standards and trends over previous years at points of transition.
The Headteacher and the Assessment Leader are jointly responsible for:
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Ensuring class teachers are aware of their accountability for the progress of the cohort, specific groups
and individual pupils. They will do this by taking into consideration the expectations of the school’s
curriculum.
Subject Leaders are responsible for:
• Ensuring all staff are familiar and with the on-going assessment, practice and guidance for their
particular subject.
• Ensuring that assessments of individual pupils are being carried out, recorded and shared with
parents and senior leaders, where appropriate .
• Create a bank of periodic assessment tasks and tests to validate pupil progress against the
curriculum in year and between years in all subjects.
• Monitoring standards in their subject according to expectations set out in the school’s
curriculum.
Outline of the Assessment Framework
Senior leaders and the Assessment Leader will take overall responsibility for ensuring that the
Assessment Policy is put into practice in the school. Policy and practice will be reviewed regularly with
staff. Assessment is at three levels in the school.
On-going – this is formative the day to day process of reviewing learning intent to see who has achieved
them then planning next steps whether they need to revisit, consolidate or move on in their learning. As
well as in lesson feedback on learning. (Please see the annexe on formative assessment for further
information) this includes the beginning of units and end of unit tasks.
Periodic – this is a summative assessment at the end of 5th half term standardised tests in KS2 and KS1
provide the opportunity to inform the 6th half terms as well as evaluate learning overtime. As does the
end of year teacher assessment.
Transitional – this is a summative assessment this is usually when pupils are assessed against national
standards at the end of the key stages but also includes other transition year groups. Briefly the schools
transition judgements framework is set out below for all subjects.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Ensuring judgements are reliable
To ensure TA (teacher assessment) judgements are reliable in year moderation of judgements is
organised in conjunction with our partner primary schools and referring to the Periodic Assessment
Guidance for English, maths and science.
We are currently developing a consistent approach to foundation subjects by referring to the guidance
Assessment in the Wider Curriculum. Children’s progress for these subjects will be reported against the
expectations of the school’s curriculum to parents once a year.
To ensure robust comparison of outcomes over time the school will be adopting standardised testing of
benchmark groups in KS1&2 for reading, GPs and maths and this will be used to further quality assure
teacher assessment.
The use of end of year standardised tests across KS1 & KS2 for reading, GPS and maths. They will be used
to identify children at risk of not making sufficient progress. All summative data in RWM will be collected
and analysed to identify the priorities for provision for the pupils.
This will allow these judgements to be linked to pupil’s next steps.
New strategies and innovations will be implemented, as appropriate, in response to the new national
requirements. Regular, rigorous standardisation & moderation will take place internally led by the
assessment/ subject leaders as appropriate.
Reporting and Recording Assessments Outcomes
Keeping parents informed about their child’s progress on their curriculum journey is vital. This will be
done consistently across EYFS, KS1 and KS2 by relating the child’s achievements to the expectations set
by the school’s curriculum.
The school will do this through reporting pupil progress in the following ways. In the EYFS the children’s
on entry assessment and end of year assessment will be shared and reported to parents using the three
benchmark groups for EYFS.
For KS1 &KS2 outcomes will be reported to parents in the summer term. English, maths and science
children’s progress will be reported to parents using the 5 broad groups which represent the teacher
assessment benchmark groups. The outcomes of standardised testing will be used to inform the teacher
assessment in the same way. For the foundation the pupil’s progress against the curriculum will be
reported in 3 groups in the summer term.
This information will also be utilised by the SLT, subject leaders and teachers to monitor pupil progress
and evaluate the impact of the school’s curriculum on learning. It is at these end of year points that
summative outcomes will be recorded for all subjects studied. In year assessments will be evidenced by
the children’s outcomes of post assessment against the curriculum and used to inform next steps but not
formally recorded.
For science and the foundation subjects the curriculum impact would be evaluated every two years to
ensure that all domains have been covered in sufficient depth for a secure judgement to be made.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
The school recognises that the exception to this would be if a pupil, group or cohorts progress is causing
concern mean that monitoring would be more intensive but would monitor this more closely through the
outcomes from children. Using Periodic Assessments to ensure pupils learning is retained.
Management and evaluation of assessment policy and practice
The assessment manager in consultation with the SLT should ensure that the school policy reflects the
latest guidance and research/innovation. The assessment leader will be responsible for reviewing the
policy regularly.
The assessment leader will audit key elements of the policy and report to the SLT to ensure that:
• Assessment take place across all subjects in the school’s curriculum
• Classroom practice is reflecting agreed whole school approaches to formative assessment
particularly about feedback and marking.
• The principles of in school summative assessment are being adhered to
• The school is linking with partner schools to allow external standardisation.
• That the use of sampling is established to reduce teacher workload
• That the school is complying with statutory requirements.
During these audits practice will be identified as at 4 stages;
Exploring – the policy is implications are being considered and changes identified (plan)
Developing – the policy is being adhered to some of the time
Establishing – the policy is being adhered to most of the time but not always consistently
Embedded – the policy is being consistently applied
These terms will be used to identify key stages of development and evaluation of the assessment section
in the SDP and audits conducted with the teaching staff.
The Quality Assurance of Standards
The expectations set out by the school curriculum will need to be robust to ensure that pupil’s progress is
being accurately recorded and are free from bias. The standardisation process will recognise the role of
support to achieve expectations and the application of prior learning as a strong indicator of children’s
achievement.
It should be recognised that those children working at greater depth of understanding will demonstrate
this capability by applying the knowledge and understanding gained in one part of a curriculum to
increase their understanding in other parts of the curriculum, or across the curriculum as a whole.
Whilst those working towards expectations of the curriculum will still require scaffolding to demonstrate
the expectations of the curriculum. Those children working at curriculum expectations will be able to
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
demonstrate expectations but not yet consistently applying them across the curriculum. This will be
monitored through the teaching cycle by the use of the indicator children’s books and outcomes.
External standardisation – the schools links with other schools for external standardisation for English,
maths and science. This is done for every year group in RWM but in year, 2, 4 &6 for science. Using
standardised/validation tests on a rolling programme will be used to indicate which broad group pupils
should be placed in. This will allow the school to standardise within and between schools.
Using standardised tests year on year – The school uses standardised testing using age standardised score
to
• identify children requiring support to reach age related expectations or further challenge,
• progress of the cohort in RWM and those children not achieving in RWM combined,
• Indicate attainment within the broad standards and use this to validate teacher judgement
• evaluate the impact of the curriculum on pupil learning
• Identify if a ‘mastery’ curriculum is being delivered by sampling children from the benchmarked
groups and identifying the range of domains and cognitive domain requiring further
development.
EYFS
In the EYFS in line with the 2021 reforms the school will be significantly be reducing evidence gathering
and tracking data. Reporting and recording of assessments will only take place against the 7 areas of
learning and at a few points across the EYFS.
The school is adopting the periodic assessment guidance for EYFS to allow the school to standardise
within and across schools across Nursery and Reception. This unlike KS1 and KS2 still remains a ‘best fit’
approach.
KS1 & KS2
Recording of assessments is primarily evidence in the children’s books. There is a strong emphasis on
using assessments to inform feedback or the curriculum rather than generating data to be recorded.
The school has adopted the periodic assessment guidance to allow the school to standardise within and
across schools across KS1 and KS2. The school will use sample validation testing and tasking to allow the
consistency of teacher assessment to be evaluated across KS1 and KS2.
Quality assuring standards in Reception, KS1 & 2
In these year groups the school is required to follow the guidance outlined by the standards and testing
agency through the assessment and reporting arrangements. This guidance is updated each year.
• the school will ensure that school practice in teacher assessment is in line with guidance for
effective practice in the moderation of teacher assessment
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
• the school will ensure that testing at KS1 and KS2 is in line with the standards and best practice
guidance for effective administration of the end of key stage test
• Reporting outcomes to parents and outside agencies – The schools will report the outcomes in
each year group in five broad groups for RWM and science.
Working well below the expectations – those pupils not working at age related expectations
Working just below expectations – those pupils beginning to work with age related expectations but not
yet secure
Working at expectations – those pupils working securely at age related expectations
Working above expectations – those pupils showing a greater depth of understanding of age related
expectations
For foundation subjects children will be externally validated with other schools by the subject leader. In
all years it will be standardised internally against the expectations of the school curriculum. This is against
the school’s learning outcomes for the units of work, drawn up to match the intended learning.
It should be noted that as the school has moved to an age appropriate curriculum it is anticipated that
large shifts of pupils will take place over time rather than in year. Pupil progress in year will be
demonstrated in their work overtime as the school’s curriculum has progress planned into it.
Progress will also be demonstrated as part of the learning sequence (see annexe 9) with children needing
less support to be able to demonstrate their prior learning. This will be most evident when children
demonstrate their prior learning in other subjects, it is this which will allow teachers to identify children
who have a greater depth of understanding of their learning.
Types of Assessments used and their purpose
Formative assessment- Formative assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. It does not
contribute to the final outcome it contributes to learning through providing feedback. It should indicate
to the children what is good about it and why this is good; it should also indicate what is not good and
how the work could be improved.
This should be used to allow pupils to identify success criteria for their learning. Effective formative
feedback will affect what the pupil and the teacher does next. The feedback process should progress
from teacher led to peer to self.
Summative assessment-Summative assessment demonstrates the extent of a learner’s success in
meeting the intended learning outcomes of a unit or terms work. It is normally, though not always, used
at the end of a unit of teaching or term.
Summative assessment is used to quantify achievement. For all these reasons the validity and reliability
of summative assessment are of the greatest importance.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
To ensure this the school has it teacher assessments externally validated to reduce bias and norm
referenced standardised testing is used to support validation of teacher assessment and evaluate
curriculum impact for RWM. Summative assessment is used to provide information that has
formative/diagnostic value.
Diagnostic assessment- Like formative assessment, diagnostic assessment is intended to improve the
learner’s experience and their level of achievement. However, diagnostic assessment looks backwards
rather than forwards.
Diagnostic approach assesses what the learner already knows and/or the nature of difficulties that the
learner might have, which, if undiagnosed, might limit their engagement in new learning. It is often used
before teaching with groups of children or whole class or when a problem arises with groups or
individuals.
The school makes use of the autumn and summer NFERs outcomes in this way.
Synoptic assessment-Synoptic assessment encourages pupils to combine elements of their learning from
different parts of a curriculum and to show their accumulated knowledge and understanding of a topic or
subject area. A synoptic assessment normally enables pupils to show their ability to integrate and apply
their skills, knowledge and understanding with breadth and depth in the subject.
This type of assessment is used to monitor the fluency of English and math’s across the curriculum as well
as ensuring that outcomes in children’s books or tasks demonstrate knowledge from across the
foundation subjects. Good use of this approach is made by EYFS practitioners and it is key principle of
EYFS practice.
Criterion referenced assessment-Each student’s achievement is judged against specific criteria. In
practice, this approach is only used with a sample of children to ensure coverage of the curriculum or
linked to validation testing or tasking.
Ipsative assessment-This is assessment against the pupil’s own previous standards. It can measure how
well a particular task has been undertaken against the pupil’s prior work or pieces of work. The use of
standardised writing or math’s task across year groups or autumn and summer could be used in this way.
Formative Assessment Approaches (on-going)
Beginning of the unit, term or end of year analysis
It should be recognised that this data can also be used diagnostically to evaluate the impact of the
curriculum on pupil’s learning. When teachers take the time to analyse pupil work, they gain knowledge
about:
• A pupil’s current knowledge, attitudes, and skills about subject matter
• Strengths & weaknesses
• Need for further, or special, assistance
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Date of next review: Spring 2025
The use of robust high quality summative assessment can help in identifying pupils who are falling behind
their peers or excelling compared to their peers. By the school having adopted a sampling techniques this
reduces teacher workload but still lets teachers modify their instruction to be more effective in the
future lessons.
Setting high expectations in planning – It should be recognised that by allowing pupils to ‘have a go’ at
new learning can be very useful to recognise those pupils who can grasp the new learning, require to
revisit or need consolidation of prior learning before moving on.
Informal in class assessment – It should be recognised that a great deal of information can be learned
from pupils’ on going work, unit tests, and quizzes. This should have a range of questions at three levels
prior learning, learning in line with the expectation and application of learning.
Questioning – The good use of questioning to explore children’s prior and current learning. This means
asking questions which pupils are required to explain their thinking. Higher order questions require more
in-depth thinking from the pupils.
They can help the teacher discern the level and extent of the students’ understanding. This approach will
allow teachers to offer prompt feedback in lesson to pupils to consolidate their understanding or
challenge any misconceptions. This would not be formally recorded.
Peer and Self-assessment – These activities lend themselves well to both pre and post learning checks
and will help to foster in pupils a responsibility for their own learning and they will begin to self-regulate
ensuring that they use prompt feedback provided to improve their work. In this way these activities
should be seen as an integral part of the learning journey, hence assessment as learning.
A good activity for this can be think-pair-share as a starter or plenary. This is one of the many formative
assessment strategies that is simple for teachers to use. They ask a question, and pupils write down their
answers. Pupils are then placed in pairs to discuss their responses. Teachers are able to move around the
classroom and listen to various discussions. It lets them gain valuable insight into levels of understanding.
Another example is the exit ticket. A simple but effective formative assessment is the exit ticket. Exit
tickets are small pieces of paper or cards that pupils deposit as they leave the classroom. Pupils write
down an accurate interpretation of the main idea behind the lesson taught that day. The teacher can
review and identify pupils who may need consolidation.
Another to use after a sequence of lessons is 3–2–1 Countdown this is great to identify embedded,
relevant and meaningful learning. When pupils learn something they find useful, they’re likely to want to
use that learning in some way. Have pupils end the day, unit or half term with this one. Give them cards
to write on, or they can respond orally. They are required to respond to three separate statements:
• 3 things you didn’t know before that you know now
• 2 things that surprised you about this lesson/topic/ activity
• 1 thing you want to start doing with what you’ve learned
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Date of next review: Spring 2025
Annexe 1 Principles of in-school Formative Assessment
• The approaches will reflect research based effective strategies. They will be within lessons and
day to day that these will be evidenced.
• The use of indicator pupils and sampling techniques to reduce teacher workload.
1. Assessment will inform about pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the topic, concept or skill –
whether knowledge and understanding is secure enough to move forward, or whether further
consolidation work or a different approach is necessary.
2. Assessment should be shared with pupils in a way that helps them to understand what they need to do
to improve – whether this is better done orally (e.g. through targeted question and answer), in writing or
through an alternative form of communication; and whether it is communicated to individuals, groups or
the whole class.
3. Assessment should have a purpose that pupils can apply it to their own learning – building in time
before the assessment to ensure pupils are prepared for it in a way which clarifies its purpose and after
the assessment to support pupils in identifying what they have learned from the assessment about where
they need to target their efforts.
4. Assessment approaches should be inclusive of all abilities – finding alternative ways to enable pupils to
demonstrate their understanding through practical application that can be observed or in discussion with
the pupil.
5. Assessment should inform planning for future lessons – How could I improve, adapt or target my
teaching, identifying which pupils to target for additional support or which areas of the topic to recap.
6. Assessment should identify gaps in knowledge and understanding where learning is secure – assessing
whether pupils who have demonstrated secure understanding can apply the concept in an alternative
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Date of next review: Spring 2025
context or providing opportunities for exploring a concept in greater depth before moving on to new
work
7. The recording of assessments must have a purpose – it should not be assumed that everything needs
to be recorded. Identify which assessment outcomes are essential to record for the teacher pupil, parent
or carer and keep it simple. Formative assessment does not have to be recorded using the same scale or
terminology as summative assessment.
Principles of in-school Summative Assessment
• Periodic summative assessment will take place 3 times a year for RWM and in line with the
school’s curriculum policy for the other subjects.
• It will involve both teacher assessment, validation testing for on-going quality assurance of
teacher assessment and end of 5thHT standardised testing.
• Summer TA and standarised testing outcomes will be used to monitor pupil’s progress (MPP),
evaluate the curriculum and identify next steps.
1. The assessment should be purposeful – to inform the teachers planning responsible for these
pupils the following year or for senior leaders to evaluate curriculum teaching and learning or for
reporting to parents.
2. The assessment should identify pupil’s attainment against expectations – how secure a pupil was in
their knowledge of the previous year’s curriculum and how ready they are for progression or useful
information on levels of independence, confidence and attitudes to learning of pupils with SEN and
disabilities.
3. The assessment should be useful to support broader progress, attainment and outcomes for the
pupils – how the information provided by the assessment can support the following year’s teacher in
differentiating the support given to pupils in the class or progress against previous assessment data.
4. The assessment outcomes should be communicated to pupils to and contribute to pupils’
understanding of how they can make further progress in the future – as part of end of year progress
meetings, so that attainment marks are supported by the broader context of the child’s progress and
understanding or using visual methods such as learning journals or videos with pupils with SEN and
disabilities as part of their personal learning plan reviews.
5. Assessment outcomes should be communicated to parents to ensure they understand what the
outcomes tell them about their child’s attainment, progress and improvement needs – how might
you communicate to parents that a child who got standardised score of 99 on the test has actually
done quite well considering their starting point or how might you communicate to parents the
importance of their child with complex needs building on and applying previously learned knowledge
and skills.
6. Assessment outcomes should be recorded to allow the school to monitor and demonstrate
progress, attainment and wider outcomes- how it can be used to provide evidence for Ofsted of how
pupil progress informs teaching, or how it informs provision mapping and hence school
improvement.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Annexe 2 what do we mean by independent work?
Independence shows itself in different ways: it does not simply mean that a child works alone and
unaided, as would be the case in a test. It can be most clearly evidenced when a child applies the
learning in other contexts.
In everyday terms, it is more realistic to think of pupil’s learning on a continuum between supported,
scaffold and independent achievement. There are definite stages in this process, when the degree of
support or scaffolding is reduced. The new standards recognise that in general, it is the degree to
which a learner can achieve something ‘independently’ that forms the basis for how secure a
judgement is in a mastery curriculum.
When planning, teaching and reviewing evidence of learning, it is helpful to consider to what extent
the work allows for or demonstrates independence. Identifying independence might include thinking
about:
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
All of these approaches to scaffolding will impact on the independence of the work and how secure
judgements are a true reflection of the new national standard.
It must be recognised that independent work of this kind typically occurs at some distance from
direct teaching, for example when concepts and skills taught in one context are applied in another.
The expectation of the standard being that a child who has securely grasped a concept or rule will
apply it across all their work can be evidence by drawing from other subjects and rather than when
the focus of the lesson is literacy or maths.
The amount of support or scaffolding that a child receives will impact on the security of judgements
made; hence by referring to a wide range of sources from across other subjects you will have a truer
picture of the child’s attainment, some distance from their direct teaching. The challenge is to ensure
that these opportunities are identified across subjects and are an integral part of the school’s
curriculum.
An outline of the stages towards depth and breadth in learning
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Please see school’s marking and feedback policy for annotation for children’s work books.
Annexe 3 Ensuring assessment is robust and purposeful
Assessment practice must reflect the new expectations • It’s now more about when and where the
pupil demonstrates their learning
• The new expectations will reflect the resilience and tenacity of the learner.
• It about recognising how well is a pupil able to demonstrate they can transfer prior learning
by being a discerning and discriminating user of that which they know makes the difference
between the standards.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Annexe 4 the Role of feedback and marking
Teachers will be encouraged to be more flexible with their feedback to ensure pupils are aware of
their next steps to improve. It will centre around 3 key principles as outlined below.
Meaningful: feedback and marking varies by age group, subject, and what works best for the pupil
and teacher in relation to any particular piece of work. There is very little evidence that long written
feedback has a significant impact on pupil’s learning or accelerates it.
Teachers will be encouraged to adjust their approach as necessary and trusted to incorporate the
outcomes into subsequent planning and teaching. Based on research this should be during the
learning sequence to maximise impact not post.
Manageable: the majority of feedback should be pre or during learning to maximise impact on
learning. Marking practice is proportionate and should consider the frequency and complexity of
written feedback, as well as the cost and time-effectiveness of marking in relation to the overall
workload of teachers.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
Motivating: Feedback and marking should help to motivate pupils to progress. This is most useful
when the people is learning. This does not mean always writing in-depth comments or being
universally positive.
When giving feedback or marking it may be more appropriate that it is short, challenging comments
or oral feedback which should take place during learning for the greatest impact.
The key principle for marking being that if the teacher is doing more work than their pupils, this can
become a disincentive for their pupils to accept challenges and take responsibility for improving their
own work. In many cases the use of whole class feedback approaches could be appropriate.
Encourage a culture in which peer and self-assessment (please see formative assessment annexe 1)
are valued and encouraged. This allows pupils to become self-regulating of their work overtime,
which is a key aspect of pupils becoming independent learners. This should include the teacher and
pupil considering if they need to revisit learning as they had little success demonstrating the
expectations, consolidate as there are elements of the expectations they didn’t grasp or met the
expectations and are ready to move on.
See school’s marking and feedback policy
Annexe 5 the Role of the Indicator Pupils
Reduce teacher workload – The sample of pupils chosen should be 20% of the cohort and should
allow the class to be grouped into similar ability around these indicator pupils. The introduction of
ranking can further refine this process. This allows the benchmarking of the teachers judgements
through internal and external standardisation.
For Comparison purposes – The purpose of the indicator pupils is to act as a standardised comparison
point for teacher’s judgements. By using representative pupils from within the broad groups
compared across the network it allows teachers judgements to be more reliable and free from bias a
key principle of assessment practice.
To quality assure teachers other assessment judgements – As teachers are asked to group children of
similar ability, this can be used for validation testing against the curriculum. By choosing children
with in these groups you can benchmark their attainment by using the test outcomes. This would
indicate if children are in the correct group together as well as which groups have the greater depth
of knowledge.
Scaffolding support – This allows teachers to ensure that their expectations are diverse to reflect the
range of competency of the pupils against the expectations set out in the school’s curriculum. This
will ensure that pupils are matched to sufficient challenge and lead to greater rates of progress
against curriculum expectations.
Progress on depth of learning – in a mastery curriculum it is the ‘depth’ of children’s learning which
reflects the distribution of attainment. A child can demonstrate this by taking greater ownership of
their learning, this will be demonstrated by a greater degree of prior learning being utilised and to
raise the expectations of a task for the child.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
The indicator pupil’s books should be used to capture pupils progress in terms of expectations.
Reviews of learning – They should also indicate as part of the feedback policy, whether a child need
to revisit learning, consolidate it or move on. By reviewing this teachers can judge if they are
providing sufficient challenge for pupils. For example a child who never revisits or need consolidation
of learning could be matched to too low expectations by the teacher and needs further challenge.
Annexe 6 Assessment Framework in the Foundation Subjects
This guidance is issued to ensure schools take a consistent approach to teacher assessment. It links
directly to the content of the national curriculum by asking teachers to reflect on which of the
current year’s expectations that children are competent in and will allow schools to ensure that they
continue their good practice of the following assessment types:
On-going – the day to day process of reviewing lesson objectives to see who has achieved them then
planning next steps using the new national curriculum, these do not need to be recorded.
Periodic – periodically reviewing day to day assessments and standardising them against this
guidance to ensure a consistent understanding of how to make judgements within school and
between schools. This would include when appropriate external standardisation by the subject
leader or teachers.
Transitional -these are used to evaluate the impact of the subject, hence sufficient evidence of all the
domains or strands from the subject is needed. These judgements would also be used by subject
leaders to report to SLT, governors and outside agencies.
Standardisation Statements – this provides 3 general statements to consider for the 3 broad
statements. The statements are progressive with an increased demand for independence and using
and applying over the year. This is a key feature of the 2014 national curriculum, unlike the previous
curriculum.
The Key Questions – their purpose is to allow the teacher to consider coverage, independence and
using and applying as these are key elements of the new national curriculum. The guidance allows
progression to be shown from Reception to Year 6.
The purpose of this approach is to allow schools to quality assure their expectations by comparing
them across schools, to ensure a greater consistency of understanding and hence make outcomes
more reliable. It is not for schools to record these assessments merely ensure that they have a
consistent and progressive expectation of children’s learning.
This is required because there are no longer a common approach to standards for all years e.g. no
more NC Levels. The approach uses teacher assessment based on on-going work and sampling of
curriculum outcomes to ensure that workload is manageable.
Impact of Curriculum Design on Assessment – In the Primary phase it is only in the core subjects that
schools are required to set out their curriculum on a year by year basis. This allows cross school
standardisation to be quite straightforward using an age related expectation.
Approved by the Governing Body 16.3.2023
Date of next review: Spring 2025
This model cannot be easily adopted for foundation subjects unless schools have set their curriculum,
out on a yearly basis due to ensuring that judgements have sufficient evidence for comparison
purposes (VALID), therefore the wider curriculum periodic assessment model should be used for
standardising within school and where the curriculum has not been set out on a year by year basis.
Not the use of expectations instead of POS in the guidance in light of this.
For the foundation subjects schools must cover all of the POS set out across KS1 and KS2. Schools
could choose to teach a subject every year or block teach in specific years. This means that if they
choose to block teach in specific year groups would not be possible to come to a shared
understanding for each year group, unless a network of schools agree to. These schools should still
be able to compare their transitional judgements in Year 2, 4 & 6.
Sufficient evidence of teaching to make a judgement – In the foundation subjects a teacher may
have 6-9 hours of evidence to review when making a termly on going teacher assessment judgement.
This can only be considered an on-going judgement as schools are required to consider if it is
sufficient evidence, this affects the security of the judgement.
In light of this schools should make a periodic judgement for reporting purposes in the summer term
if teaching yearly or when appropriate when block teaching the subject and use this for monitoring
purposes. The decision is the schools as it is for the headteacher in consultation with the governors
who define the school’s curriculum.
Demonstration of fluency of English and maths – Schools should not to use the wider curriculum as
a vehicle to deliver more English and maths. Other subjects provide an opportunity for children to
demonstrate prior learning from English and maths, allowing teachers to recognise this as embedded
or ‘deep’ learning.
Subject Specific Knowledge – Schools should be clear that if feeding back on a geography lesson to
pupils, the focus should be on geographical skill or knowledge and next steps in geography. When
they are reviewing on going assessments to make summative assessments they should be looking for
pupils demonstrating their knowledge and understanding of geography. It is this that the subject
leader should be focused on considering if a child is on or off track.