The Future of Assessment at LHS

The new progress and attainment system at LHS In September 2014 the government removed the national levelling system that has been in place since the 1990s As you will know the levels for primary school went from 1c to 5a The expected attainment for the end of KS 1 was 2b and 4b for the end of KS2 This only gave a progress window of TWO levels through the whole of KS2

So what was the problem? The biggest challenge to teachers and leaders was that this narrow band of possible attainment meant that it was sometimes difficult to accurately show how well, or otherwise, a pupil was doing academically Also, a pupil attaining a L3 in Y2 for example looked like they were approaching Y6 levels already – this was simply misleading for parents and deeply frustrating to the profession

What has the Government done now? It has removed the whole national levelling system and asked all schools to develop their own ways to measure attainment and progress We took the view that we needed to take a year to find the most appropriate system to assess our pupils and to help them achieve their potential

So what will the LHS system look like? How will it work? We will cover this following a video from Tim Oates director of assessment, research and development at Cambridge Assessment He will explain the thinking of the specialist panel which briefed the Government

Tracking Attainment and Progress with ‘Steps’ from Target Tracker The school has been using Target Tracker software to measure pupil attainment and progress for the past six years. It has proved to be invaluable to us here at LHS To replace national levels Target Tracker has devised a system of ‘steps’ This performs the function of communicating progression and attainment in a simple format where the number of the level awarded is the same as the year group the pupil is currently in These levels are split into 6 ‘steps’ within the year group

What are the steps? Each year band has been broken down into six steps: beginning (b) beginning + (b+) working within (w) working within + (w+) secure (s) secure + (s+) Each pupil will begin a year group as a ‘b’ and progress through the levels as the year evolves

Where should my child be ideally? This will obviously depend on the pupil’s ability level and how hard they work! However, the expected standard at the end of each academic year will be ‘s’ – ‘secure’ BUT we will be tracking progress as well and each pupil will ideally make 6 ‘steps’ of progress from one year to the next So Bob who was ‘2s’ (Year 2 and ‘secure’) at the end of Y2, should be ‘3s’ by the end of Y3 Obviously this is based on an ideal

What does each step actually mean? The three broader sections may be thought of in these terms; Beginning – Pupil learning is chiefly focussed on the criteria for the band. There may be minimal elements of the previous band still to gain complete confidence in Working Within – Pupil learning is fully focussed on the criteria for the band. This is a teacher best fit decision but could be informed by statement assessments between around 40% and 70% achieved Secure – Confidence in all of the criteria for the band. There may be pupil learning still focussed on gaining thorough confidence in some minimal elements but the broad expectations for the band have been met

Why have we got ‘b’ and ‘b+’ etc? Each band is broken into two parts to enable progress within the band to be evident For example, a pupil may be assessed as Band 2 Beginning (2b) in the Autumn term in Year 2. The next time the teacher records their assessment they may not feel that the pupil has progressed to Working Within, but the pupil has made progress. An assessment of Beginning + will allow that progress to be shown The inability to record smaller progress measures was a frustrating issue with the outgoing levels system The school has 3 major assessment windows during the year where progress is entered into Target Tracker

Year 1 Autumn 1 assessment End of Year 1 target End of Year 2 target End of Year 3 target End of Year 4 target End of Year 5 target End of Year 6 target 40-60s+1s2s3s4s5s6s So what should the age expected ideal attainment and progress look like? For a pupil to attain thorough coverage of the year band, children should reach the secure (or s) step by the end of the appropriate year We believe this makes reporting your child’s progress and attainment much clearer for you

So what’s the ‘s+’ step all about? The advice from the Government is that pupils who have gained a secure understanding of the Y4 programme of study, for example, should not be automatically moved on to the next year’s programme Instead they should be provided with extension work to deepen and consolidate their understanding of the concepts and skills already grasped The new curriculum is already more challenging so this extension work will be covered by a small cohort of each year group

The new ‘Secondary Ready’ expectation This year Y6 will be taking the new, more challenging SATs tests in English and maths There will still be a national expected level of attainment for these pupils This level is to be called ‘Secondary Ready’ and is based around a scale score of will be the expected attainment level

A brief tour of how the Steps approach will work We have created a fictional pupil on Target Tracker to hopefully demonstrate how teachers will be measuring pupil attainment and progress This process has already begun with the first assessment window set for just before parents evenings later in the autumn term

The take home message!

This term, we are starting a new assessment and progress system which will be: Clearer to understand for parents and teachers Uses software that is already well established in LHS and across the UK Works hand in hand with the new National Curriculum and its expectations