A life without levels: Assessment in 2016-2017

Questioning Marking Observations Dialogue Testing What is assessment? A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Who needs to know what? Student What do I know? What do I need to know? What do I need to do to get better? Teacher What students know? What do the students need to know? How can I help them? Parent What is my child good at? What do they need to improve? How can I support them at home? A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Why the change? In 2013, the UK Department for Education initiated a review into assessment in UK schools. From their review they found that assessment using National Curriculum (NC) levels was creating gaps in student’s acquisition of the required skills and knowledge needed for their age as teachers looked for students to cross level thresholds. “Levels have detracted from real feedback and schools have found it difficult to apply them consistently – the criteria are ambiguous and require teachers to decide how to weight a huge array of factors… It will be for schools to decide how they assess pupils’ progress.” DfE (2013) From the review the introduction of a new National Curriculum was introduced in 2014 and schools were no longer to assess using NC levels from 2015. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Nord Anglia Education Nord Anglia Education brought together teachers and leaders from across the family of schools to decide how the British curriculum schools would move forward with assessment. They decided that all British international schools in the group would create their own assessment system based around age expectation as the UK schools have done. They advised on a number of elements to support schools: Each subject should look to identify 20 statements per year group related to key skills and knowledge that students in that year group should be assessed against. Students should be assessed on a four point scale. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

What’s going on at NAISAK? The new UK National Curriculum (NC) was introduced in NAISAK in September 2015 in Years 1 – 6. Primary teachers at NAISAK were given 12 months to establish this into classrooms before the introduction of a tailor-made assessment system was introduced. The new assessment system no longer uses NC levels, but instead assess students against age expectations on a four point scale: Beginning Developing Meeting Exceeding The subjects assessed this way are Writing, Reading, Numeracy, Science and IPC. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

How was this designed at NAISAK? There has been a very open process involving all teachers in the Primary Stage. Members of the Primary Leadership Team designed the initial statements for each subject, these were then shared with teachers a number of times with amendments being made until the final statements were agreed upon. As with any change, we will reflect on the success of the first term as we look to constantly improve the way we assess our students. At NAISAK we have called the subject statements FLOs, which stands for Fundamental Learning Objectives. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Where did they come from? Creating the FLOs Where did they come from? National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Ros Wilson’s Standards for Writing Assessment Hamilton Trust Grammar scheme of work New British National Curriculum A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Age related expectations Why? Age related expectations Average Year 3 child Use paragraphs Use expanded noun phrases Use powerful verbs Begin to use adverbs Use pronouns Use a wide range of conjunctions Use the correct verb tense Use inverted commas to indicate speech Use a range of punctuation A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Writing FLOs How are they organised? Planning and drafting Editing Vocabulary Grammar Punctuation A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

The importance of the assessment areas Planning The ‘what am I going to do’ Discussion of writing – say before you write Oral rehearsal and composition of sentence Organisation of writing Understanding of common features 5 December 2016 | A Life Without Levels

The importance of the assessment areas Editing The ‘evaluative process’ Proof reading Self correcting Peer and self assessment 5 December 2016 | A Life Without Levels

The importance of the assessment areas Vocabulary The ‘main course of writing’ Understanding and use of different word types Selecting vocabulary for a particular purpose A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

The importance of the assessment areas Grammar The ‘tools of written language’ Conjunctions Pronouns Verb tenses A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

The importance of the assessment areas Punctuation The ‘sentence road signs’ Sentence punctuation Speech Commas Apostrophes A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Application of FLOs The Journey of a FLO Creation Shared with staff Planning Lessons Targets Assessments Reports A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

FLO Journey Planning A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

FLO Journey Lessons A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

FLO Journey Targets A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

FLO Journey Assessment A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Reading A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

How do we track progress? FLO’s Guided Reading Lessons Literacy Lessons A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK ?

Reading Assessments Rising Stars - Years 3 - 6 PM Benchmarking A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

How to help your child with Reading at home Read daily Phonics Verbal Comprehension A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Numeracy – What are FLOs? Where are the FLOs from? Rising Stars NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) Knowledge of our children Are the FLOs everything my child is learning in Numeracy this year? No, only a selection. Objectives which must be learnt to have the fundamental basics for learning in future years. What is the main focus of the FLOs in Numeracy? Number – the fundamentals of Numeracy. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Numeracy – How to Support Your Child at Home Mathletics www.mathletics.com Parent Module Weekly email on progress Mathletics Party 20 minutes 3x a week – proven to improve progress. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Numeracy – How to Support Your Child at Home Times Tables The majority of FLO Numeracy lessons are affected by a working knowledge of times tables. Your child should know up to 12 x 12 by Year 4. Home Learning Home learning is linked to the FLOs. Ensuring your child understands the work, but is still doing it independently, is important. A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

IPC and Science A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

Reporting Cycle October – Meet & Greet December – Short Report April – Short Report April – Student Progress Meetings June – Long Report Student Reflection Meetings A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

December 2015 Report A Life without Levels | Assessment at NAISAK

December 2016 Report

Questions?