Assessment throughout the curriculum
Through our planning, teaching and learning we want our children to learn more and remember more. The knowledge they acquire in their seven years at our school is the foundation for their learning in later life. The skills the children acquire, use their knowledge.
It is vital, therefore, that we assess what the children know, what they have remembered, in order to build our sequence of teaching and learning.
Our key form of assessment in all areas of the curriculum, throughout school is ongoing daily in the classroom, through talking to the children, using questioning, marking their work and adjusting the learning in the moment.
We also encourage the children to self and peer assess, to learn from their mistakes and realise that as part of the learning process we make mistakes, we move on and we learn. Teachers evaluate planned work and make changes according to the needs of the children. Groups are fluid and support responds to the needs of individuals. We try to ensure that as much feedback as possible is given at the point of learning, though obviously some work will have to be read and marked minimally later in the day. We avoid over-marking when a child is not there, and prefer to help children to correct errors themselves, or re-teach a misconception to increase the learning experience. All work is read and marked by staff and is used to plan subsequent lessons.
At the start of lessons and sequences of lessons, staff will review prior learning through mind maps, or quizzing to evaluate the knowledge the children have remembered. Planning will then be adjusted as needed to build upon this. We use recapping and retrieval in lessons and across the week to review learning regularly. This all helps the children to learn more and remember more, and it aids the staff in assessing this knowledge.
In mathematics, reading and writing, our teaching and learning is focused on the age related objectives for each year group. These are shared with the children, and are located in the books of the children in Key Stage 2. The children use these this term in their self and peer assessment. In conjunction with class teachers, the children will evaluate whether they have met an objectives, and talk about their growing knowledge.
At the end of each term, teaching staff will use the children’s progress in their books, alongside test materials, to evaluate the proportion of objectives each child has met. By tracking this each term, we will be able to evaluate the attainment and progress of your child. This will be shared with you at Parent Conversation meetings, so that you know whether your child is at, above or below their age related expectations, and how you can support at home.