Life After Levels In The New National Curriculum Hartford Community Junior School

Life After Levels From September 2014 all maintained schools were required to move to a ‘New National Curriculum’. Why The Big Change? The main aim is to raise standards. It’s designed to help develop productive, creative and well educated students.  The new curriculum is intended to be more challenging, focusing on essential core subject knowledge and skills.

Life After Levels What are the Main Changes? Mathematics It goes further than the previous curriculum. There's quite a lot of new content which, up until now, has been regarded as the province of ‘secondary maths’. This includes long division at year 6, and an increasingly complex understanding of fractions and decimals. Some content has moved ‘down’ by one or two years, meaning children will be expected to master some things earlier than they have before. Practice is key! The aims state that it is imperative to keep key maths fundamentals, such as times tables and number facts, "on the boil" through varied and repeated practice in order that children can solve progressively complex problems. There is a renewed emphasis on calculating and problem solving with fractions and decimals and less on data handling (now called statistics).

Life After Levels What are the Main Changes? English Focus on the fundamentals There’s a much deeper focus on learning grammar explicitly. The new curriculum contains a long list of often complex grammatical concepts, punctuation and spelling rules that children will have to identify and label as well as use.  Reading for pleasure  The new curriculum's clearly states that children should read widely and voraciously for pleasure and for meaning. It highlights the pivotal role of schools in ensuring that reading takes place beyond the school gates and ambitious expectations for reading at home should be expected. Recitation and debate  The new curriculum promotes a wider assortment of oral performance that includes presentation, improvisation, drama and debate. There is more emphasis on structure and convention: with children being able to organise their thoughts and ideas for the purposes of debate, discussion, explanation and narration. 

The Bar Has Been Raised The expected level of attainment for children at all ages has dramatically increased.

The Bar Has Been Raised The rate of progress expected of children at all ages has significantly increased.

The Bar Has Been Raised Example of KS2 Spelling Punctuation and Grammar Paper 2016 Examples of KS2 Maths expectations

Some examples of how the expectations in maths have changed: Measures Old Curriculum New Curriculum Year 3 – read time on a 12 hour clock to nearest 5 minutes Year 4 – read the time to nearest minute, use am, pm and 12 hour clock notation Year 6 – Measure and calculate using imperial units still in everyday use Calculate the area and perimeter of rectilinear shapes Year 3 – must tell time to nearest minute and use specific vocabulary including am, pm, seconds, minutes and hours Year 4 – Read, write and convert time between analogue and digital 12 and 24-hour clocks Solve problems involving converting from hours and minutes, minutes to seconds, years to months and weeks and years Measure and calculate the perimeter of rectilinear shapes using m and cm and find areas of shapes Year 5 – convert between different metric and imperial units of measures

Multiplication & Division Facts (Times Tables) Some examples of how the expectations in maths have changed: Multiplication & Division Facts (Times Tables) Old Curriculum New Curriculum Year 3 – Derive and recall multiplication facts for 2,3,4,5,6 and 10 times tables and corresponding division facts Year 4 – derive and recall number facts up to 10 x 10 Year 5 – Quickly derive multiplication facts for 10 x 10 KS3 – understand notation of cube numbers Expressing fractions as simplest forms Divide and multiply fractions Year 2 – Recall division facts for 2,5 & 10 times tables and corresponding division facts Year 3 - Recall multiplication facts for 2,3,4,5,6, 8 and 10 times tables and corresponding division facts Year 4 – Recall multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 x 12 Year 5 – multiply and divide numbers mentally using tables knowledge Recognise square numbers and cube numbers Year 6 – multiply pairs of proper fractions and divide fraction by whole numbers, expressing answers in simplest forms

Life After Levels The old National Curriculum levels will be discontinued with the exception of the current Years 6 and 2, who will continue with the ‘Old National Curriculum’ until the end of the academic year. All other year groups are to be assessed in a way that the school chooses and sees as being fit for purpose. The system chosen by the school must be able to measure both attainment and progress of pupils. The chosen system must be robust and easy for pupils/parent/governors and teachers to understand. The DfE have given no guidance on what the chosen system should ‘look like’.

How will we assess? We are introducing new systems of assessment at the school. Assessments will ultimately take place each half-term, as the system is introduced across Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Teachers will be assessing the children against targets which are specific to their Year Group. We are replacing the Year Group Targets with ‘Stage targets.’ For example Year 5 Targets become Stage 5 targets . Pupils will have their targets glued into their books. Assessments will be tailored to the ability of each individual child and so children in the same year group may be assessed against targets from different ‘ Stages’. This will help us ensure continuity of assessment across the school. We have adopted the Assertive Mentoring system for Mathematics and Writing and are currently looking to source an alternative system for Reading.

How will we assess? Example of Assertive Mentoring Maths Target Sheet Examples of Assertive Mentoring English Writing Target Sheet

How will we report data? During the first term we assessed every child in Mathematics and Writing, using the new curriculum ‘Stage Targets’ so that we could collate base-line data to track the progress of all of our children. These assessment results CANNOT be compared to their results (Levels) from the old curriculum as the curriculum content is different. When assessing the level of competency of a child in a specific statement there will be 3 options to choose from according to the level of competency of that child. These 3 options are designated as follows:

Assessing the New Curriculum It is our goal to have all children working within or achieving their Year Group Expectations by the end of the school year Year 6 Stage 6 School Assessment Against Year Group Expectations Next Stage Ready Secure Developing Year 5 Stage 5 School Assessment Against Year Group Expectations Next Stage Ready Secure Developing Year 4 Stage 4 School Assessment Against Year Group Expectations Next Stage Ready Secure Developing Year 3 Stage 3 School Assessment Against Year Group Expectations Next Stage Ready Secure Developing

Attainment and Progress It is our expectation, that by the end of the academic year children’s attainment will be such that they will be working at an Age Related Expectation (Stage). For example a child in Year 4 will end the year working at Stage 4. A child in Year 5 at Stage 5. Due to the significantly higher expectations of the New Curriculum it is envisaged that initially we will find children working below their Age Related Expectation (Stage) but that over time they will attain their appropriate Stage.

Life After Levels And The New Curriculum SUMMARY Attainment Levels and Rates of Progress are to increase significantly. The old Levels method of reporting will be phased out.

Life After Levels And The New Curriculum SUMMARY New descriptors such as Developing, Secure and Next Stage Ready will replace the old levels. Please note that the old levels and the new descriptors are not comparable as the expectations of the new curriculum are significantly higher. Year 3 Stage 3 School Assessment Against Year Group Expectations Next Stage Ready Secure Developing

Life After Levels And The New Curriculum SUMMARY The method of assessment will be based around Assertive Mentoring for Mathematics and Writing and will in time be every half term. Initially, attainment will appear to lag behind the old levels as we play catch up with the higher expectations of the new curriculum.