Assessment (09-11-11)

See slides for much more information (v wordy slides).

Need to know how assessment is going to work in your second school placement as well as your base school.

Central Issue: assessment is part of a cycle and it’s pointless unless you use the assessment data to plan the next part of studies, to inform your practice. It’s not just putting a number in a box.

Definitions

1. Assessment of Learning is Summative (i.e. marking SATs; seeing where pupils are; used to be called Summative Assessment). Usually occurs at the end of a block or work. What you would use for Parents’ Evenings. 

2. Assessment for Learning is Formative (informing your practice). What you do in the classroom all the time to assess the chn’s needs- what you need to do to satisfy this. e.g Questioning chn at the start of the lesson about something to find out what they need to know. If used very well, this will enable pupils to take ownership of their learning and if used very well, it will lighten the burden on teachers. Shirley Clark is the guru on this.

1. Assessment of Learning

Need to assess to measure yourself against National Standards. Day-to-day, Periodic (once a term), Transitional (see slides).

Recognition + celebration of progress. Chn need to know they are making progress (telling chn or not their levels; another way of providing them evidence they are progressing) The curriculum provides the context for this assessment.

Set a level in July to achieve by the following July. Targets are matched  to the curriculum and informed to parents. Individual targets for Maths and Literacy. Important that the chn know what their targets are, and that parents know.

Whole school tracking- check against target set at the end of previous year (might bump it up); if they are not going to meet the target, then you put in place intervention strategies. Every child discussed.

Profile Points (PP) and the P-Scales

Profile Points (PP)

EYFS: 9 x Profile Points (these points are not related/progressive- they are different areas within the Areas of Learning) in each of the 6 Areas of Learning. Some of these Profile Points are not really appropriate for older chn- hence the need for something else leading into the regular Levels (i.e. P-Scales).

P-Scales

By Xmas Yr1, chn not achieving at 1C, will go onto the P-Scales (nothing to do with Profile Points). There are 8 points on the P-Scales and they are progressive.

Some people use W- this shouldn’t be used as it doesn’t really tell us anything about the chd’s progress.

• Below Level P4 is very rare in regular schools- below this level it is chn with real learning difficulties (can’t communicate apart from blinking etc). There is no real expectation of number of sub-levels to move, because each case is so idiosyncratic (according to the learning needs).
• PSHE is a whole nother world for assessment.

Statutory Assessment

Must give evidence for these assessments.

EYFS- through observation. Statutory to record it against Early Learning Goals.

‘Learning Journeys’ (not statutory but common in schools, as you have to provide evidence).

KS2: If a chd is ill, they cannot sit the SAT paper another time but are given a Teacher Assessed Level (not formally recognised).

Science is given a Teacher Assessed Level but is not examined at SAT level.

SATs markers are full-time teachers too. Can they do a good job bearing in mind their regular duties + responsibilities?

CAF

Measures a range of things, not just learning- social, mental, health etc. Where the needs are more complex (and involve agencies outside school). Major assessment, often done in conjunction with the school nurse. People must be trained to write a CAF (SENCO, Child Protection Officer, Head, Deputy etc).

Primary Progress Toolkit

i.e. Target Tracker.

Many different systems but all are open to abuse: for example, with CVA (Contextual Value Added), schools started putting more pupils on the SEN register knowing their CVA rating would be boosted.

[CVA scrapped now].

Average Points Score (APS)

Another internal system of measuring/evaulating progress.

Records a number of points. Ofsted look at it.

Indicator of the school, not the pupil. 

Based on pupils Levels of English, Science and Maths. A Class/Year score is generated from this.

RAISE online

External: SATs and EYFS PP scores are number-crunched by DfES. Then these are benchmarked against other schools taking into account FSM etc. 

Password protected: need p’word from Head Teacher.

Gives a great picture of school. Has to be looked at with a bit of knowledge, otherwise you may draw the wrong conclusions (therefore the School-Directed Task is to look at it with your Assessment Coordinator). 

Some schools are reluctant to share RAISE online info with GTs. It benchmarks schools against each other.

APP

‘A structured approach to periodically assessing mathematics and reading and writing’.

Assessing Pupil Progress. Set up against Frameworks, which have now been scrapped.

1. Assessment for Learning

• Drawing houses with or without targets + marking schemes

See slides for definition. All came from the ‘Black Box Documents’.

5 Key Principles:

• Provision of effective feedback to Pupils (verbally, marking, tying up with target setting and Net Steps),
• Active involvement of pupils in their own learning (chn taking responsibility- not spoon-feeding them),
• Adjusting teaching to take account of the assessment (what do they need to do next to progress to C, then putting that into the planning),
• Need for pupils to self-assess and understanding how to improve (thumbs up and thumbs down etc- this is not enough, pupils need to then know what to do next)
• Recognition of profound importance assessment has on motivation + self-esteem of pupils.

Key Elements

Make sure pupils have time to read what you have written in books as marking.

Good modeling is showing what you’re thinking and why you’re doing: not just modeling how you want something laid out.

Provide feedback. Pupil self/peer assessment.

LOs

Early in the lesson or not? If done at the start, are you spoon-feeding them? Can you do it better by grabbing their attention and hooking them with a great start, getting them thinking and involved?

Can we not display the LO throughout lesson? (Based on Shirley Clarke’s most recent advice?)

You have to work with what your school says. Ensure you prepare who is going to be observing you and account for why you are not going to display the LO throughout the lesson and you are free to do whatever you want.

Ask chn at end of lesson what they feel they have learnt (good system of reviewing learning)

Plenary must reflect the LO in some way.

Success Criteria and Lo need to be available for chn throughout the session.

Lessons often go wrong when teachers don’t really know what they want the pupils to learn. Lo comes first in planning and should be in your head, even if you are not telling the chn.

Success Criteria

A checklist (Have you used Time Connectives? etc). Checklist should be used as part of Editing process too. Model this in plenary perhaps, looking at good work and bad work (not one of the chn’s work though).

Make sure you explain they are not instructions for carrying out task.

Strong process element for Success Criteria.

Phrase, ‘What makes good______’ is good. ‘What makes good sitting?’ Have the chn tell you. ‘What makes a good Science Investigation?’

Can support differentiation: different ability groups have different success criteria in place.

Experiment with chn generating success criteria themselves.

Keep success criteria as a classroom resource (e.g. when you have cross-curricular stuff like writing a diary entry in History, you can refer back to the Literacy success criteria you do before).