Assessment at WPS
Assessment Curriculum Statement- WPS
At WPS Assessment is integral to the teaching and learning cycle across all subjects. Formative assessment is used at all times to gauge children’s understanding and progress and to plan next steps in teaching.
Summative assessments are used, on a termly basis and at the end of year through formal NFER tests.
Standardisation is carried out across Year Groups, and Key Stages as well as externally through School Improvement Liverpool.
Pupil Progress Meetings for each year group take place on a termly basis with a member of SLT.
A Foundation Stage End of Year summative assessment document allows for accurate end of year assessment in the Foundation Subjects.
Opening Worlds, currently used in Y3 and Y4 for Geography, History and RE has the following approach to assessment and is followed at Woolton Primary
The Opening Worlds programme has three types of assessment:
- i) Routine, embedded, informal formative assessment.
This happens all the time. It is built into every lesson. You are constantly checking that knowledge is secure and that pupils are learning to think historically or geographically with their new knowledge. The regular quizzing and short tasks are always giving you ongoing information about how well your pupils have remembered and understood, so that you can adapt and/or re-teach immediately, or at least in the next lesson, ensuring no pupil ever gets left behind.
- ii) End of unit synoptic tasks
After the sixth lesson of each unit, pupils do an extended, synoptic task. This is often a piece of extended writing. It might also be an annotated diagram or a more creative outcome such as a story about the past or a little problem to solve using their historical or geographical knowledge. These extended tasks allow pupils both to further develop and to demonstrate, their new knowledge, both substantive and disciplinary, from all six lessons. We will supply guidance on assessing these extended tasks. Normally, you would do these in a seventh lesson. Older pupils may be able to do some tasks as a homework or extended project.
iii) End of term multiple choice tests
At the end of each term, we will supply schools with a short, simple-to-administer multiple choice test that randomly samples pupils’ history and geography knowledge (and RE knowledge if you have chosen to use that part of the programme) from across the whole term (two units in each subject).
These are termly summative tests, giving you data about how well your pupils are mastering the curriculum. Each test has 12 questions (H&G) or 18 questions (H,G and R) questions. With thorough teaching, all pupils should gain at least 10 (H&G) or 15 (H, G and R) every time.
If their marks are constant at this level, they are making excellent progress. You will have clear evidence that they are mastering the curriculum.
Assessment Curriculum Intent
Primary purpose of assessment at Woolton 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 planning
- will be informed by their parents/previous providers as appropriate
- be used to plan appropriate teaching and learning strategies
- 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 good progress and achieve well compared to age related expectations from the
- enable pupils to understand how to improve as a result of useful feedback, written or oral, from teachers, peers or
Implementation
At WPS we will make good use of formative 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. It is bound into the next steps, looks forward as well as back, and is closely allied to forward planning. It should be recognised that by making effective use of pre learning assessment tasks the school can ensure that the curriculum a child receives is matched to their next steps in learning. By the use of post learning assessment tasks the pupil progress can be judged against their pre learning task.
Impact
- enable individual pupils to make progress in their learning
- relate to shared learning objectives demonstrated though 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 against expectations
- involve both teacher and pupils reviewing and reflecting upon assessment information
- provide feedback which leads to pupils recognising the ‘next steps’ in their learning and how to work towards achieving these
- enable teachers to plan more effectively by using assessment outcomes to modify 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
