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Parkgate Primary School

Assessment

At Parkgate, we understand that assessment is crucial for understanding students' progress across both core subjects (like English, maths, and science) and foundation subjects (such as art, geography, and history). It helps teachers identify strengths, address gaps in learning, and tailor instruction to meet individual needs, ensuring a well-rounded education that supports both academic and personal growth. Regular assessment fosters a supportive environment where children can thrive and build a strong foundation for future learning.

 

Our approach to assessing children

~ Every child can achieve, teachers have the mind-set, ‘What do I need to do next to enable a child in my class to achieve?’

~ The National Curriculum objectives will be used as the expectations for all children.

~ Pupils will make age-appropriate progress from their different starting points – 12 months in 12 months, more for those who need to 'close the gap' to reach age-related expectations.

~ Teachers are experts at assessment - assessment will be effectively used to ensure the correct scaffolding is built into lessons to ensure all children achieve.

~ Assessment information will only be accurate and valuable if it is the result of rich and engaging learning opportunities. If children are bored and disengaged, they will not demonstrate what they know, understand and can do in their work.

 

Our assessment and reporting system include:

~ Robust ongoing assessment against the National Curriculum statements by the class teacher throughout each lesson, through questioning, observation and dialogue.

~ The full use of a range of assessments to constantly identify children not making expected progress and, where appropriate, seek advice and guidance on possible next steps

~ Children know what they are being asked to learn and, more importantly, why.

~ Three-way feedback; child, peer, teacher with clearly identified learning points – this can be written or verbal feedback.

~ Regular scrutiny of children’s work.

~ Termly tests for reading, GPaS and maths.

~ Identified underachieving children should be targeted for additional intervention or support to ensure they make accelerated progress to catch up and keep up with their peers.

~ SLT monitor the progress of identified underachieving groups to ensure that provision, planned interventions and teaching and learning strategies are having the intended impact and take appropriate actions where progress is not being made.

~ Pupil information passed from teacher to teacher

~ Regular training / updates for staff in our approach to assessment and a senior leader who is responsible for assessment across the school.

 

We assess so that:

~ Teachers can assess what children know, understand and can apply to their work.

~ Teachers can plan learning opportunities that reflect the needs of all children.

~ We can identify children who are falling behind and therefore plan support / intervention to address their needs.

~ We can identify children exceeding their age-related expectations and therefore plan work to deepen their understanding.

~ We can provide parents with information about their child’s learning.

~ We can provide useful data for analysis, whole school planning and accountability.

 

How we assess:

~ Formative on-going assessment that involves teachers giving feedback to children that relates to what they have achieved and areas they need to improve on.

~ Summative decisions are made about children’s achievement at the end of each term and annually. These decisions are based upon bodies of the children’s work but tests. We recognise that, whilst useful, summative tests only provide a snapshot of performance at any given time.

~ Teachers input their moderated, summative assessments, Standardised Scores on SIMs towards the end of each term.

 

Foundation Subject assessment

Assessing foundation subjects at Parkgate involves a more flexible approach, focusing on both skills development and knowledge acquisition. Teachers use a combination of observation, project-based tasks, and practical activities to assess students' understanding in our foundation subjects. This approach allows for a holistic view of a child’s progress, encouraging creativity and critical thinking while ensuring a well-rounded education.

At Parkgate, teachers record assessments on a piece of software called Sonar Tracker. This allows the data to be analysed at an individual, class or whole school level to inform teaching approaches, evaluate pupil progress and determine pupil attainment. 

Sonar Tracker is more than a collection of tools to collect, collate, and share assessment data; it is an integral part of the assessment process. The suite:

  • Enables better outcomes for pupils.
  • Improves the identification of pupils that are falling behind.
  • Actively helps with the process of managing and making use of assessment data.

Sonar Tracker has been built using the combined expertise, experience, and educational history of the teams behind the market-leading Target Tracker, OTrack, Classroom Monitor and Pupil Asset products. 

Termly Assessments / Tests Yr 1 – 6

~ The use of Literacy Gold and Dynamo maths assessments for children identified for specific reading and maths interventions, as appropriate to the timing of the intervention, to measure impact and identify next steps.

~ The use of Welcomm and Speech-link to identify children who require further language support.

~ Ongoing Foundation subject assessments are recorded using SONAR.

 

Statutory Assessments (End of Key Stage)

Children complete the following statutory assessments:

~ Reception – Baseline Assessment

~ Year 1 (and 2) - Phonics Screening Check

~ Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

~ Years 6 - end of Key Stage assessments

 

Moderation

~ Assessment judgements are moderated termly between classes, across school and our network to make sure our assessments are fair, reliable and valid.

Moderation evidence:

~ A child is not required to demonstrate a statement on a specific number of occasions for them to be assessed as having achieved it. However, they should be able to demonstrate and apply the skill or knowledge independently, where appropriate in a different subject or context. Problems and texts should be appropriate to the standard being judged.

~ Tests will be used to inform judgements