Assessment Without Levels Parent Information Event

Why the change? A new national curriculum was introduced in September The new curriculum requires that children are able to independently access skills taught in their year groups across a wide range of contexts. Children are revisiting and deepening their understanding of what they have learnt improving their ability to apply learning in as many ways as possible. In summary, the new curriculum demands that children have a breadth and depth of understanding far greater than the previous curriculum with an emphasis on children being able to APPLY their skills rather than constantly learn new ones that they are not necessarily confident to use. Why?

i “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… using technologies that haven’t been invented….in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” So… deep understanding and application of key skills is essential.

What about assessment? The National Curriculum levels and sub-levels (eg 2c, 3a, 4b etc) are no longer used (from September 2015). Schools have the freedom to make professional judgements on how children are learning the knowledge, skills and concepts within the National Curriculum. With this comes a big responsibility to ensure that at all levels it is being taught in a way that develops the whole child. Because teachers cannot push through a set of levels, they are free to help children master the full breadth of the curriculum for their year group. The progress will be evident and measurable in books and through the children themselves. There is a clear recognition that learning is not linear. This is not to say that challenge and high expectations have slipped. Once a child has met aspects of their year group’s curriculum and this is clearly evidenced, the teacher must push the child on to their next stage of learning. This will not be scored through a data package but will be the responsibility of the school to ensure that children are meeting their full potential, through clear and thorough checking systems.

The REAch2 Non-Negotiable Milestones 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. The non-negotiable milestones are not to be used as a curriculum or checklist that directly structures planning and teaching sequences. The new assessment system using the non-negotiable milestones recognises that the new national curriculum is sufficiently challenging for pupils and that schools should avoid attempting to accelerate pupils in a narrow, linear fashion. It does not pretend that children progress in a nice, neat, straight line.

. The non-negotiable milestones are a summative expectation of what skills, knowledge and concepts the child should have by the end of the year. It is by no means the range, breadth or depth of what a child should be learning. They are not a replacement for levels. They are not a basis for planning or measuring steps in progress. It is anticipated that the majority of children will be working within age related expectations by the end of each academic year.

What judgements will be made? Within any year group (years 1-6) there are 4 separate categories: Working towards – 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 – 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. On-Track to Meet – Children are On-Track to comprehensively attain the S,K & U of the assessment criteria by the end of the year. Met – Children demonstrate they have mastered the S,K & U of the assessment criteria required to apply them across a broad range of contexts. There is no specific category for ‘exceeding’. Children will be challenged to apply the skills for their year group in a vast array of situations to ensure depth and breadth. In some cases, children will begin to access the curriculum for the year ahead to ensure continued progression. Children can be identified as working at milestones above their chronological age but no assessment ‘category’ will be given to this. For children with specific diagnosed SEND, teachers will retain the ability to dis-apply criteria which are inappropriate to the child’s abilities and developmental needs.

. Progress over time The national curriculum expects children to meet the age-related expectations by the end of each Key Stage. REAch2 deems this to be sufficiently challenging and so children that do so, or are assessed as on track to do so within a Key Stage, are judged to be making GOOD progress. Children that are significantly catching up to age expected levels will also be judged to be making ‘Good’ progress within a year.

Reporting to parents Reporting will be similar to the past with parent meetings and reports. The key difference will be that we will share assessment information that is linked to age expected levels rather than the ‘old’ national curriculum levels and sub-levels. This will give greater clarity to where you child is working in relation to what is expected.

What is expected for each year group?

What next? ‘What’s next’ and ‘Key skills’ documents will be available on the website First reports and first parents’ meetings of the year to be held in November Express events give a regular opportunity to see children’s workbooks Please ask if you have any questions!