1. Arrangements for teacher assessments and SATs at Gamlingay First School in 2016.

2. Context and introduction ‘Old style’ SATs have gone. They had been in operation since the 1990s! National Curriculum levels were removed as a way of assessing children when the ‘new’ national curriculum was introduced in September 2014. Last year, however, children in Year 2 and year 6 were still assessed against these levels. The new national curriculum assesses where the children are in comparison to end of year expectations.

3. KS1 tests: key changes Test window  The new KS1 tests are to be administered in May 2016 English reading  2 papers: 1 with text and questions combined.  1 more challenging text with the questions in a separate booklet. Grammar, punctuation and spelling  Emphasis on technical aspects of grammar.  Separate spelling test.  No English writing test. Mathematics  New arithmetic test introduced. 2 papers to be taken.

4. Children have already done sample tests!! We try and keep it as low key as possible. If a child is struggling we will take them out. All the ‘new style’ papers start with easier questions. In some of the papers children can have questions read out to them. Children have already had a go at the sample tests. We are going to do the tests in the weeks beginning 16 th and 23 rd May. Please don’t book holidays!

5. Scaled scores  Outcomes of the tests at the end of KS1 and KS2 will be in scaled scores. These are reported to the Local Authority and the Department of Education.  The ‘expected standard’ will always be set at 100.  Raw scores in the test will be converted to scaled scores.  Teachers will then make a judgement using this information as to whether pupils have met/not met the ‘expected standard’. These judgements are reported to parents.

6. 2016 Teacher assessment. This is still the main judgement that is reported to you, as parents. A framework is in place against which we assess children. This is an ‘interim’ framework’ which is only in place for one year.

7. KS1 interim frameworks for TA  For English reading, writing and mathematics there are 4 standards:  working below the expected standard  working towards the expected standard  working at the expected standard  working at greater depth within the expected standard.  For science, one standard (working at the expected standard).  Each standard contains a number of ‘pupil can’ statements.  Teachers need to judge a pupil demonstrates attainment of all statements within a standard and all the statements in the preceding standard(s).

8. Interim teacher assessment framework at the end of key stage 1 - writing Working at the expected standard  The pupil can write a narrative about their own and others’ experiences (real and fictional), after discussion with the teacher:  demarcating most sentences with capital letters and full stops and with some use of question marks and exclamation marks  using sentences with different forms in their writing (statements, questions, exclamations and commands)  using some expanded noun phrases to describe and specify  using present and past tense mostly correctly and consistently  using co-ordination (or / and / but) and some subordination (when / if / that / because)  segmenting spoken words into phonemes and representing these by graphemes, spelling many correctly  spelling many common exception words* and spelling some words with contracted forms*  adding suffixes to spell some words correctly in their writing e.g. –ment, – ness, –ful, –less, –ly*

9. KS1 interim frameworks for TA (cont)  KS1 tests must be taken in May 2016  Test outcomes form one strong piece of evidence of independent work that a teacher uses when making their final teacher assessment judgement.  Raw scores are then converted to scaled scores.  Schools will have to judge as to how this will relate to their teacher assessment.

10. How you can help! When reading with your children please ask them questions about what they are reading. Ask them to think of alternatives to the words in the story. Ask questions that require inference. For example ‘how do you know the character in the story is kind/selfish’ etc Spelling, punctuation and grammar is one of the hardest part of the tests. Please practise with them as often as possible and refer back to previous spellings. Give them calculations to do in the car, including word problems. Use ‘Mathletics’ as much as possible. Make sure that they have early nights, and are well fed whilst the tests are taking place!!