Assessment & Reporting to Parents & Carers

Keeping parents informed

The relationship between school and home is crucially important.  There are many ways in which the school keeps parents and carers informed about the progress and attainment of their children:

• Teachers and the Headteacher are available for 10 minutes every morning and 10 minutes every afternoon on the playground.  For longer appointments, parents and carers can make an appointment.  We ask that parents and carers stand away from Teachers when they aren’t engaging in a direct conversation to permit other conversations to take place confidentially.
• Planners have a record of how children are progressing with their reading.  This is informed by home and school.
• Teachers call home in September in week 2 or 3 for a brief catch-up conversation on how a child is settling.
• There are two parent evenings during the year.  These take place at the end of the autumn and spring terms.
• Parents receive three reports during the year.  All reports are written at the end of term to reflect progress and attainment reports.
• Children with SEND have additional ILP (individual learning plan) reports sent home on a termly basis.
• Children with SEND may have annual review meetings with parents, carers and school staff attending.  This is in addition to the termly ILP (Individual learning plan) reports.

Why do we assess children?

We use assessment as a tool to measure how well what we have taught has been learnt – if there is no change in long term memory, nothing has been learnt.  Once we know what has been learnt, we can adjust our teaching by introducing more or less new content, changing the way we present information, intentionally revisiting previous topics so connections can be made etc.  For each child, for each lesson, this will be different.  Teachers use this information to fine tune their planning in order to help children progress in their learning.  Here are some of the teaching and assessment methods and processes we use to tell us how well children have captured and processed what has been taught:

• Open and closed questioning takes place during every lesson.
• Other assessment such as voting, whiteboard work and discussion regularly take place.
• Live marking takes place in all year groups during classroom based lessons. The marking code is used in all year groups.
• Pupils mark work as soon as they are able and proficient.
• Pupils assess their level of understanding at the end of each session. This is usually indicated by a coloured pencilled dot.
• All books are marked on the day of work or before the next lesson is finely planned. Assessment is indicated by a coloured sticky dot.
• Assessment is recorded on the continuums for all lessons with notes made in preparation for verbal feedback in the next lesson.
• Planning is finessed from the feedback notes.
• Non negotiable stickers are used where the standard of work does not match the school expectations and ability of the pupil.
• ILP targets are used to inform planning and to assess progress at the end of each half term for children with SEND.
• Summative assessments are made following English and maths assessments or science and foundation quizlets.  Quizlets have been written by Subject Leaders who have directed the learning in their subject in planning documents by identifying the essential knowledge pupils need to learn.
• Intentional revisiting takes place every day with knowledge and skills repeated through daily ‘Quizit Revisit’ sessions in all year groups.