Assessment
Importance of Assessment
Assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process in school. We assess your child in lots of different ways and the information collected is crucial in targeting your child’s learning and tracking their progress.
Assessment takes place each day at school and takes many different forms. The teachers and learning support staff in all year groups make assessments of the children and use them to inform future planning and set targets for individual children and groups. Assessment also helps to ensure that children achieve highly and feel that their strengths and talents are understood and valued.
The results of assessments are used as a basis of discussions at parents evening which helps parents to be involved in their child’s progress.
Intended outcomes of assessment at Howe Park School
In Howe Park School we aim:
- To be clear about what our pupils know, understand and can do.
- To ensure that pupils know what they are supposed to be learning, when they have achieved and how they can improve.
- To have high, but realistic expectations of pupils.
- To recognise the different needs of pupils.
- To use assessment to plan the next step for individuals and groups of pupils.
How do we assess children at Howe Park School?
Teachers identify opportunities for assessment in their planning in all subject areas across the curriculum. These assessments:
- Are drawn from opportunities which arise naturally from the interaction between teacher and pupil during lessons and general day to day activities.
- As a result of assessing children’s work
- Are drawn from feedback from other colleagues
- Are made by observing pupils, asking questions, listening, evaluating and discussing their work with them.
Foundation Stage
Assessment begins before the children even start school. Home visits are conducted in which the staff assess children in their homes and collect relevant information from parents and the children’s previous nursery education.
Observations are made by the key workers. They observe the children during group time and independent activities.
These observations are used to inform discussions at parents’ evenings.
Parents feed into assessments by recording on stars in nursery, and on leaves in Foundation 2, the children’s achievements at home. These are celebrated as part of the school day.
Parents attend a Parent Consultation Meeting every term.
should this section be in reporting to parents as a separate section.
Years 1 and 2
Alongside the ingoing assessments outlined above, each term the children take part in progress weeks. During these weeks the children are given the opportunity to show all that they have learnt in all subjects across the curriculum. This is done through independent work which the teacher levels against the national curriculum levels. These levels are used to track pupil progress and set next steps for individuals and groups.
At the end of year 2 the children take part in the SATs (statutory assessments). These, alongside, teacher assessments are used to give the child a level at the end of Key Stage 1 in writing, reading, maths and science. This information is reported to parents and passed on to their new school as part of the transition process.
Reporting to Parents
Children who attend the school’s nursery receive a written report in the term before they start school (in nursery).
Foundation children receive a report towards the end of the Spring Term and the outcomes of the EYFS are shared with parents towards the end of the summer term.
Children in year 1 and year 2 receive a report towards the end of the Spring term of each year.
Target setting
Assessments are used to set targets for the child’s next steps of learning. In Nursery these are set at parents evening and class targets are shared with parents in newsletters.
For the rest of the school the targets are recorded on a ‘Next Steps card’ which is used by the child in literacy and numeracy sessions.