ASSESSMENT AT GOLDSTONE
Intent
It is the entitlement of every child at Goldstone to be given an education that builds on their strengths, addresses their individual needs and ensures progression. Assessment is an essential tool in the delivery of this entitlement. At Goldstone, we have a range of assessment tools that we use to ensure that assessment informs planning, tracks pupil progress and ultimately raises standards.
We ensure that:
- Assessment is fair, inclusive and free from bias.
- Assessment is open, honest and transparent.
- Assessment secures high expectations for all.
- Assessment is appropriate to age, task and individual ability.
- Assessment is accurate and consistent.
- Assessment supports comparison with other schools, both locally and nationally.
- Assessment outcomes provide meaningful and understandable information for pupils, parents and school staff.
- Assessment informs planning and provision for the next steps in learning and allows both teachers and coordinators to identify areas of weakness.
Implementation
Throughout the year – Teachers and support staff give children high quality written and verbal feedback in order to allow learners to reflect on their successes. In a range of subjects, next steps are given to show children where they can go next. AfL strategies during lessons are also used to give teachers instant feedback on the success of a lesson.
At the end of each term – Formal data entered onto SIMS for core subjects. Insight (foundation) and SIMS (core) used to look for areas of strength / weakness by class teachers and YGLs. Particular attention is taken to vulnerable groups such as SEND and PP. For the core subjects, ARE sheets are highlighted for 6 children who represent a group of learners. This is to show progress and attainment in their relevant POS. Any children out of POS have a relevant ARE sheet completed for them. In the foundation subjects, Insight is used to assess each child against the knowledge statements written by the relevant coordinator. These are tracked by the subject coordinators and areas of weakness are used to support writing their action plans.
At least twice a year – The headteacher, SENCO and assessment coordinator meet with year groups for pupil progress meetings. This is an opportunity to discuss the progress and attainment of children and discuss areas of strength and weakness. During these meetings, time is spent discussing vulnerable groups such as SEND and PP.
Across the year – The assessment coordinator conducts both marking and assessment folder scrutinies to maintain standards. Year groups moderate their work within their PPA time. Both core and foundation subject coordinators regularly collect books from teachers to ensure consistency across individual year groups and to ensure progress across year groups.
In autumn and spring – Teachers meet twice with parents and carers for consultation meetings where progress and ways forwards are discussed. Teachers identify the parents / carers of vulnerable groups and to try to ensure that they are able to come.
In summer – Teachers write a comprehensive report of each learner in their class. They also indicate their attainment, effort and progress across the core and foundation subjects. A drop-in session is offered after the release of reports for any parents / carers who wish to come and discuss what has been written.
At the end of the year – Teachers meet after the new class lists have been completed to discuss their new children with previous teachers. This allow them to have extra information about their new class from someone who knows them well and this, combined with data from the previous year, allows them to understand their new cohort in preparation for teaching them.
Impact
The impact of rigorous assessment for Goldstone is as follows:
- It allows staff that work with children to understand their learning profiles and cater for their individual needs.
- It allows areas of weakness in the curriculum to be addressed and gaps filled.
- It allows children to know when they have been successful and gives them ways to improve next time.
- It allows coordinators to oversee their subject and have meaningful data about attainment and progress. It also allows them to know if there are areas where support needs to be implemented.
- It allows dialogue between teachers and parents / carers.
- It reduces to a minimum any lag between year groups whilst teachers get to know their new class.
Addendum
One of our school priorities this year is to monitor teacher workload and mental health. With this in mind, the following changes have been implemented to try and ensure that any assessments completed have maximum impact on learning and outcomes.
- Move to Insight Tracking for the foundation subjects. Cuts out the use of paper assessment and the need to input this data in multiple locations as was the case in the past.
- Use of Insight Tracking to generate a significant section of our reports (name, attendance, attainment etc) to cut out this data entry expectation and allow time to focus on high quality personalised statements for each child.
- Next year, it is likely that there will be a full audit on the impact of written feedback to ensure that any comments made in books are impactful on the learning of the children and not just done for the sake of it.
