St. James' Catholic Primary School Principles of Assessment:
- Teaching, learning and assessment are integrated.
- Assessment is key to driving progress.
- Assessment puts the child at the centre of their learning ensuring all children reach their full potential.
- Assessment is manageable, purposeful, accessible and time-efficient.
- Our assessment framework values professional judgment, dialogue and a common language.
- Assessment objectives set consistently high expectations of learners.
- Assessment judgments are supported by a range of evidence.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment, often referred to as Assessment for Learning (AfL), is part of the everyday teaching and learning process. Teachers gather evidence about a pupil’s learning, for example by observing, listening, questioning, discussing and reviewing pupil work. They can then use this evidence to:
• identify progress and gaps in learning (including individual support needs)
• set learning goals and success criteria
• provide feedback to pupils.
Formative assessment is something that takes place during every lesson at St. James'. Teachers carefully monitor the progress of children and adapt their teaching to suit individual needs. This allows for them to make the best possible progress.
Summative assessment
We use NFER tests at the end of each term to help inform our teacher assessment judgements. These tests for reading and maths are administered as part of a lesson and children are never put under undue pressure to perform. The tests enable the senior leadership team to:
- benchmark our results nationally
- confidently monitor attainment and progress
- make accurate comparisons between pupils and groups of pupils
- gain formative information to guide teaching and learning
- quickly and easily interpret our data
Assessment of all other subjects
At St. James' we recognise the importance of assessing and tracking all children in all areas of the curriculum in order for them to make the maximum progress.
Class teachers use metacognition techniques such as over-teaching, repetition, revisiting and self-regulated knowledge organisers to embed and build upon knowledge. Pupil interviews and questioning are therefore a key tool used by class teachers in order to assess progress. Assessment of the Foundation subjects is recorded and shared with subject leaders who then use this information to support specific groups or individual children. All of the above is monitored by the senior leadership team and is shared with parents and governors on a regular basis.
