Assessment without Levels at Meadow Stephany Hunter Deputy Headteacher

Changes to the National Curriculum  The old National Curriculum has been in place since your children were assessed with levels based on attainment suggestions from this curriculum.  New National Curriculum is now in place and replaces the old one. Schools have been asked to identify their own way of carrying out assessment but without the use of levels.

The New National Curriculum  The new National Curriculum still has all the subject areas that we had before (some renamed).  Lends itself to thematic planning through use of IPC:  Year 1/2 – Great Fire of London  Year 3/4 - Ancient Egypt  Year 5/6 – Ancient Greece Core Subjects Foundation Subjects Literacy – now referred to as English Numeracy – now referred to as Maths Science History Geography Design & Technology Art & Design Personal, Social, Health & Citizenship Education Music ICT – now referred to as Computing Physical Education P.E Modern Foreign Language Religious Education – R.E

What has changed in the new National Curriculum?  The new curriculum is broken into ‘programmes of study’ for each year group / phase  It is a lot more prescriptive in English and maths, less prescriptive in the foundation subjects  The expectations are much higher than ever before, with much of the curriculum being shifted down into lower year groups, particularly in English and maths.  For example some old year 5 expectations can now be found in year 3, some Year 8 expectations can be found in year 5 / 6.  e.g. all children in year 4 need to know all their times tables up to 12 x 12.

What has changed in the new National Curriculum?  The raised expectation means that children need to have a very secure knowledge of the programme of study for their year group and depth of understanding and application.  The end of year expectation is now that children are ‘secure’ in their year group’s programme of study. This is where they need to be at the end of the year.

REAch2 Assessment Without Levels (AwL)  A trust-wide system has been devised which uses non- negotiable milestones to assess and track the learning of pupils against the new national curriculum for each year group.  Working together across the trust, all 52 schools will be using non-negotiable milestones to assess children’s attainment and progress.  They are a summative expectation of what skills, knowledge and concepts the child should have by the end of the year.

REAch2 Assessment Without Levels (AwL)  The changes in curriculum require that children are able to independently access the skills taught in year groups across a wide range of contexts.  They are revisiting and deepening their understanding of what they have learnt, improving their ability to apply learning in as many different ways as possible.

An Example: Maths Year 5 Number Milestones Number:  The child is secure in numbers up to 1 million.  The child understands how the values of digits change when multiplied and divided by multiples of 10, 100 and  The child calculates with decimals and whole numbers, using all four written methods.  The child identifies links between properties of numbers up to 100.  The child understands a range of fraction types and uses them in calculations.

Assessing Attainment at any point: The four possible judgements  Working Towards (WT) – Children are accessing the curriculum below the expectations of their chronological age. They do not currently have the skills, knowledge and understanding required to access, achieve or demonstrate significant engagement with the assessment criteria.  Aspiring to Meet (A) – Children are accessing the expectations of their chronological year group, however are deemed not to be On- Track to meet expectations fully by the end of the year without significant additional support. Children have demonstrated some capability of engaging with it but may need specific intervention and / or additional quality-first teaching in order to be confidently assessed as On-Track.

Assessing Attainment at any point: The four possible judgements  On Track (OT) – Children are on track to comprehensively attain the skills, knowledge & understanding of the assessment criteria by the end of the year.  Met – Children demonstrate they have mastered the skills, knowledge & understanding of the assessment criteria required to apply them across a broad range of contexts.  If your child is working well below their chronological age, there will be a number in front of the symbol e.g. a child in year 4 might be assessed at a 3OT. This means they are on track to meet year 3 milestones by the end of the year.

Assessing Progress Over Time The National Curriculum expects children to meet the age-related expectations by the end of each Key Stage. REAch2 deem this to be sufficiently challenging and so children that are Met (M), or are assessed as on track (OT), are judged to be making GOOD progress.  Progress will be judged as ‘Good’ or ‘ Not yet good ’.  Teachers will have to provide a wide range of evidence to support their view that progress has been ‘good’.  Children who move to other judgements within a year are also judged as making good progress  For example, if at the beginning of the year a child is assessed at WT but by the end they are A, that shows good progress.

Thank you for your time this evening. Please feel free to come and ask me any questions.