1. Year 2 2014-15 Assessment Meeting

2. Assessment at the end of Key Stage 1.
Currently, children are assessed by their teachers throughout Primary School.
However, their levels of attainment are formally reported at the end of each Key Stage.
At the end of Year 2, children’s attainment in reading, writing and maths will be formally assessed and reported.
Year 2 children complete formal tests (SATs). However, these are only used to support the teacher assessment level.
As a school, we encourage children to achieve their best but we do not talk about SATs with the children and we do all that we can to ensure that our Year 2 children do not feel pressured or anxious about end of year assessments.

3. Assessment at the end of Key Stage 1.
The National Curriculum has changed and levels are no longer used in Years 1, 3, 4 and 5. However, this year children in Years 2 and 6 will still be assessed using levels.
The national age-related expectation for children at the end of Year 2 is currently a 2b.
However, we are a high achieving school and we strive to ensure that a high proportion of our children achieve above this level.
There is a huge difference between level 1 and level 2, the main difference being that children are expected to work independently and in a shorter space of time.

4. Reading
In order to achieve higher levels in reading, children need to be able to read and interpret a wide range of genres including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Children’s reading is assessed throughout the year through weekly guided reading and comprehension sessions, termly practice tests, hearing children read in a variety of contexts e.g. reading for information in Geography/History.

5. How can you help your child?
The home-school reading scheme is only designed to support children with basic word recognition and simple comprehension skills.
Once a child is reading these books fluently, the best way to support your child and extend their reading skills is to introduce other genres, preferably initiated by your child’s own interests, and focus on enjoyment, comprehension, discussion and interpretation.
Attempting to race through the stages of the home-school reading scheme will not result in deepening or broadening your child’s reading knowledge.
We encourage all children to recognise reading as a gift to be enjoyed and to read for pleasure. Adding pressure or encouraging competition between children in reading, generally reduces their enjoyment and confidence and is not encouraged.

6. How can you help your child?
Once children have a good level of word recognition and fluency, they are ready to develop their skills in comprehension and interpretation.
We do lots of work on these areas in school during lessons and during shared and guided reading sessions.
You will have noticed that we have been sending comprehension activities home for homework – however, discussion about a text and simple questioning as part of any shared reading experience is invaluable.

7. Some Example Comprehension Questions.
Level 1:
What is the character’s name?
Where does the character live?
What did the character do after lunch?
All of these questions will have the answers in the text. Encourage your child to locate where the answers are in the story.

8. Some Example Comprehension Questions.
Level 2:
Why do you think the character feels angry?
Which two words tell you that the character feels angry?
Why has the author written ‘NO! ‘in capital letters?
These questions require your child to use their skills of inference and deduction in response to what they have read. These are higher order skills and children will need to refer back to events in the story in their answers.

9. Some Example Comprehension Questions.
Level 3:
The questions at level 3 are broadly similar to level 2 questions but children are expected to read a much longer, more challenging text in the time given and the answers can be more difficult to locate.
At level 3, children are also required to have a knowledge of the features of different text types and their purpose.

10. Writing.
Children are taught writing and are informally assessed throughout the year. They are given many opportunities to write for a variety of purposes.
Writing does not only take place during English lessons but the children are required to maintain the standard of their writing across the curriculum.
We encourage high standards in handwriting and presentation in all of their writing including homework.
At the end of the year, children are given a formal writing assessment which they must complete independently in a given amount of time.
This shows us the child’s ability to use all of the taught skills.

11. Progression of skills in Writing.
Children write in a series of simple sentences that make sense and are demarcated with a capital letter and a full stop.
Children begin to use adjectives and expanded noun phrases in their writing e.g. The big scary dog had sharp teeth.
At a basic level, children should be able to spell common high frequency words in their independent writing correctly such as they, went, said, saw, you. They are expected to make phonetically plausible attempts to spell unfamiliar words.

12. Progression of skills in Writing.
As children become more competent writers, they should be writing at length and we look for the following:
Sentences joined by conjunctions e.g. The man fell asleep because he was tired.
Children use a variety of sentence openers.
They begin to use exclamation marks and question marks appropriately.
Spelling should be increasing in accuracy as children’s knowledge of spelling patterns increases.

13. Progression of skills in Writing.
Higher level writers will continue to add detail and interest to their work and show an awareness of the reader. We would look for the following:
A mixture of simple and compound sentences throughout the piece.
Adverbial phrases e.g. Yawning, the old man staggered to bed and fell asleep.
Beginning to use speech marks and alternative said words.

14. Maths
Children are taught a range of key skills in Maths across several areas including Number, calculation, shape and space, measures, data handling and statistics.
Children are informally assessed throughout the year and complete a formal assessment at the end of the year which encompasses all of the skills taught and must be completed independently. (support can be given with reading the questions.)

15. Maths
There are Key Skills which higher achieving children in Year 2 will achieve by the end of the year. These include:
Count forwards and back from different starting points in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10.
Read, write and order numbers to at least 100.
Recognise the place value of each digit in a 2 digit number (extend to 3 digit)
Find 1/10 more/less than any given number up to 100.
Know addition and subtraction facts to 20 by heart and use related facts up to 100.

16. Maths
Double any number between 1 and 30 and find all corresponding halves.
Add and subtract numbers mentally using a range of strategies e.g. to +9, + 10 and subtract 1.
Solve missing number addition and subtraction problems.
Recognise fractions such as ½, ¼, ¾
Tell and write the time to 5 minutes.
Find different combinations of coins to make particular values.
Understand different units of measure for length, mass and capacity.
Identify and describe the properties of 2D and 3D shapes.

17. Maths
These key skills are taught in addition to the four main operations (+, -, x, ÷ )
Children’s understanding of all key skills can only be identified when solving problems where they are required to use and apply what they know independently.

18. In Conclusion
The formal assessments will take place at the end of May.
We do ask that children are in school on time having had a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast so that they can work hard and achieve their best.
Please do not keep your child off school during the time leading up to the assessment weeks and during the assessment weeks unless, of course, they are unwell.

19. In Conclusion
We are well aware that Year 2 children are only 6/7 years old and therefore we are reluctant to mention the term SATs to the children. We ask that you support us with this.
Children generally find Year 2 an enjoyable and fun experience and we do not wish to put them under any pressure.
We teach them everything that they need to know and so long as they work hard and try their best we will never ask for anything else!