1. Assessment without Levels

2. The end of levels
the last year children’s progress and attainment in all subjects was reported using levels.
Levels stretched (typically) from level 1 – 5. Each level contained three sub- levels, recorded as ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’.
During primary school, a child would be expected to progress through the levels. For example, beginning as a ‘1C’ before reaching level 4 or 5 at the end of year 6.

3. The benefits of levels
They gave teachers a common language. Experienced teachers knew what a ‘4B’ piece of writing looked like, compared with a ‘4C’ piece of writing.
Target-setting and demonstrating pupil progress was easy and clear.
All schools used the same system, so pupils or teachers transferring between schools had no difficulty adjusting to the assessment system.

4. But, two big problems…
The (erroneous) assumption was that children would all progress through the levels at a relatively similar speed and in a relatively similar manner. For example, in year three they would be a 2B or above, reaching level 4 by year five. Children do not learn in straight lines!
Children were encouraged to jump through the levels (so the schools could show progress!) before their understanding was really secure.

5. The change
The 2014 National Curriculum brought an end to levels. Schools were told to develop their own internal systems of tracking both attainment and progress.
However, the language schools must use to describe assessment results changed. Children must now be assessed against ‘national expectations’ – the national curriculum objectives.
Children’s attainment is described as ‘below’, ‘meeting’ or ‘exceeding’ national expectations.

6. Changes to sats
Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs have also changed. The children will receive a raw score and a ‘scaled’ score. A ‘scaled’ score of 100 or greater will mean the child is working at national expectations for their age group.
The ‘nationally expected standard’ at year 2 and year 6 is significantly harder than under the ‘levels’ system. Children who achieved ‘level 5’ on past papers are at risk of failing to meet national expectations under the new system.

7. Difficulties
Every school now has their own assessment system – there is NO common language of assessment.
A lot of snake-oil salesmen (and women).
Time!
Ofsted – part of each inspection will need to be set aside for assessment system explanation.
Lack of guidance or clear examples of effective assessment from the DfE (at this point).

8. Designing our system
We agreed as a staff that a good assessment system must: be an accurate reflection of the pupils’ abilities; must be useful to teachers; must identify quickly where students are falling behind and must provide clear information to parents.
The National Curriculum typically gives between 30 and 50 learning objectives for each year group in the core subjects. It was agreed that this is too much to assess with any accuracy. E.g. Y5 Science: ‘Children can describe the movement of the moon relative to the earth.’

9. The Key Objectives
We have used a ‘key objectives’ list and our own judgement to identify ‘core’ objectives which the children will be assessed against.
The children will be assessed against each objective using a mixture of work scrutiny, test performance and observations made by the teacher and support staff.
We agreed to use a numerical system to measure performance – much like the new GCSE measure, whilst keeping to the requirement of identifying children as being ‘below’, ‘meeting’ or ‘exceeding’ national expectations.

10. Progress against key objectives
A problem: if a pupil is assessed to be ‘meeting’ or ‘exceeding’ a certain objective, demonstrating pupil progress across the year would be extremely difficult.
To combat this, we have introduced a scale of 1-9. A score of 1-3 represents a standard ‘below’ expectations; 4-6 represents ‘meeting’ and 7-9 represents ‘exceeding’.
So, a child who is just exceeding (7) can still make progress by reaching ‘9’ – absolute mastery – by the end of the year.

11. Advantages of our system
Very easy to track progress over time.
Using our coloured system, progress and attainment are easy to measure.
Children at risk of falling behind are quickly identified, and specific gaps (which of the key objectives can’t they do?) can be corrected.
It is a ‘teacher-led’ system. We are not using a complex (and expensive) computer algorithm to decide where the pupils are, we are using our professional judgement and expertise.
It is very easy to share with pupils, governors and parents.

12. Next steps
Data for Maths, Reading, Writing and Science will be reported to me using the key objective grids at the end of each half-term. These data will be shared with all staff, governors and, at key times of the year, parents.
The data will be used to identify pupils who require additional support and ‘intervention strategies’ will be prepared for pupils at risk of falling behind. These interventions will be reviewed with me every half term.
The children will all be ‘baselined’ at the beginning of September, so we have an accurate measure of every child’s starting point.
Staff will have ‘pupil progress discussions’ with me at the end of each full term.