1. New National curriculum Assessment Framework
2016

2. Changes to the National Curriculum The Good!
The new National Curriculum promised to focus on ‘getting the basics right’ and ‘mastering’ these skills rather than racing pupils through the levels. The basics include increased emphasis on number and calculation, spelling, punctuation and grammar.
The New National Curriculum was said to be narrower to allow each area to be studied in greater depth to enable ‘mastery’ of these skills.
The National Curriculum makes year group expectations explicitly clear. This should enable everyone to understand how best to support each individual pupil to assure that their progress and attainment is in line with other pupils of that age nationally.
Pupils should master the objectives for their year group rather than moving onto new content. This means developing these skills in greater depth and using them in a range of different contexts.

3. Changes to the National Curriculum The Bad!
Our current Year 6 pupils have only been taught the elements of the new curriculum for two years, meaning that much of the learning isn’t embedded with them.
The curriculum is still too broad to enable ‘mastery’ of all elements. For example, our Maths Teacher Assessment Grid has 54 statements/skills which each Y6 pupil must meet to be at the expected standard. This includes Roman Numerals.
The DFE has been very slow to publish guidance to support teachers. The Interim Assessment Frameworks did not come out until the end of the Autumn Term, Exemplification Materials came out late January and writing moderation training didn’t happen until just after Easter.
We won’t truly now where we are going with assessment until this year’s tests have been completed.
The English curriculum is overly focussed on the technical aspects with very little credit given for creativity. Look at the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework for Writing this year.

4. Interim TA – Writing – examples on the side Working at the expected standard:
The pupil can write for a range of purposes and audiences (including writing a short story):
creating atmosphere, and integrating dialogue to convey character and advance the action
selecting vocabulary and grammatical structures that reflect the level of formality required mostly correctly
using a range of cohesive devices, including adverbials, within and across sentences and paragraphs
using passive and modal verbs mostly appropriately
using a wide range of clause structures, sometimes varying their position within the sentence
using adverbs, preposition phrases and expanded noun phrases effectively to add detail, qualification and precision
using inverted commas, commas for clarity, and punctuation for parenthesis mostly correctly, and making some correct use of semi-colons, dashes, colons and hyphens
spelling most words correctly (years 5 and 6)
maintaining legibility, fluency and speed in handwriting through choosing whether or not to join specific letters.

5. Key Stage 2 Assessment
There are 2 strands to the end of KS2 assessment:
Formal tests (Reading, English Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling, Maths);
Teacher Assessment (Reading, Writing, Maths, Science).

6. Formal Tests Monday 9th-Thursday 12th May 2016
See notes from Year 6 Assessment Update Meeting.
Pupils will sit tests in:
English reading (1 x 60 mins Reading Test);
English grammar, punctuation and spelling (1 x 45 mins Questions, 1 x 15 mins Spellings);
Maths (1 x 30 min Arithmetic, 2 x 40 mins Reasoning).
Note: There are no longer ‘Level 6’ papers, questions at this difficulty level will now be included at the end of the main tests.

7. Formal Tests Scaled Scores
The outcomes of the new tests will be provided in the form of scaled scores, where a score of 100 represents the standard expected at the end of the key stage. A pupil’s scaled score will be based on their raw score. The raw score is the total number of marks a pupil receives in a test, based on the number of questions they answered correctly. The pupil’s raw score will be translated into a scaled score using a conversion table. 100 will always represent the ‘national standard’. However, due to the small differences in difficulty between tests, the ‘raw score’ (ie the total number of correct responses) that equates to 100 might be different (though similar) each year.

8. Sample English Reading Test Questions

9. Sample English Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Test Questions

10. Sample Maths Arithmetic Test Questions

11. Sample Maths Reasoning Test Questions
There are further examples of test questions in your pack.

12. How are we assessing in school?
Teacher Assessment
The older pupils are aware of the expectations for their year group, which should enable them to take greater control of their own learning.
The progress of each pupil is tracked by their class teacher. As an objective is taught to the class, the teacher uses a range of ongoing assessment strategies to judge whether or not the pupil has met the objective. This could include: questioning, conversations with teaching assistants, work with peers, work in books and marking and feedback.
We have made changes to the way that we mark work and feedback to the pupils – we use a range of symbols to indicate ways in which the pupil can improve their work.
I will share the progress of pupils against these objectives at each parents evening. Hopefully, this will enable you to support your child at home with the objectives that they are finding tricky.
For a pupil to meet the ‘Expected Standard’ for their year group, they must demonstrate that they have met all of their year group’s objectives. This is a major change to assessment as previously a ‘best fit’ model was used.
We have changed our target setting in school so that we continue to have broad focus areas for the whole class in Maths and English but every pupil has a personalised short-term target which we are calling next steps. This will be indicated in the teacher’s marking of work and may only be relevant to the next piece of work or so. This will enable the pupil to focus on this area so that they provide evidence of them meeting this objective.

13. How are we assessing in school?
Internal Testing
All pupils in Years 1-6 are now completing termly tests in Reading, Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and Maths.
These tests are similar in style to the type of test pupils will sit in Year 2 and Year 6.
The tests allow teachers to track the progress of the pupils in their class using standardised scores; plan targeted intervention sessions to accelerate the progress of those pupils whose progress has slowed and to plan the learning of the class to allow them to meet the end of year expectations.
The tests allow the pupils to see areas which they need further support with.

14. What does my child need to know?
The programme of study for each year group can be found online at
Useful documents (all in your pack):
English Appendix 1 – Spelling Rules by year group and spelling word lists.
English Appendix 2 – Outlines which grammatical concepts are taught in each year group.
English Glossary – Helpful to us all in developing our understanding of technical grammatical terms.
The school’s curriculum leaflets outline the core learning objectives for each year group in reading, writing and mathematics. These can be found on the school’s website. Find at
The school’s Maths Calculation Policy outlines which written methods are taught to each year group.
Year 6 Report Card provides a termly assessment against all of the key objectives completed by the pupil and the teacher.
Interim Teacher Assessment Framework for 2016 – this will change and be developed going forward. Find at: _teacher_assessment_frameworks_at_the_end_of_key_stage_2_PDFA_V3.pdf

15. Year 6 Reading Refer to text to support opinions and predictions.
Give a view about choice of vocabulary, structure, etc.
Distinguish between fact and opinion.
Appreciate how a set of sentences has been arranged to create maximum effect.
Recognise:
complex sentences with more than one subordinate clause
phrases which add detail to sentences
Explain how a writer has used sentences to create particular effects.
Skim and scan to aide note-taking.

16. Year 6 Writing Use subordinate clauses to write complex sentences.
Use passive voice where appropriate.
Use expanded noun phrases to convey complicated information concisely (e.g. The fact that it was raining meant the end of sports day).
Use a sentence structure and layout matched to requirements of text type.
Use semi-colon, colon or dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses.
Use colon to introduce a list and semi colon within a list.
Use correct punctuation of bullet points.
Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity.
Use full range of punctuation matched to requirements of text type.
Use wide range of devices to build cohesion within and across paragraphs.
Use paragraphs to signal change in time, scene, action, mood or person.
Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed.

17. Year 6 Maths
Use negative numbers in context and calculate intervals across zero.
Compare and order numbers up to 10,000,000.
Identify common factors, common multiples and prime numbers.
Round any whole number to a required degree of accuracy.
Identify the value of each digit to 3 decimal places.
Use knowledge of order of operations to carry out calculations involving four operations.
Multiply 4-digit by 2-digit
Divide 4-digit by 2-digit
Add and subtract fractions with different denominators and mixed numbers.
Multiply simple pairs of proper fractions, writing the answer in the simplest form.
Divide proper fractions by whole numbers.
Calculate percentages of whole number.

18. Year 5 Reading
Summarise main points of an argument or discussion within their reading and make up own mid about issues.
Compare between two texts.
Appreciate that people use bias in persuasive writing.
Appreciate how two people may have a different view on the same event.
Draw inferences and justify with evidence from the text.
Vary voice for direct or indirect speech.
Recognise clauses within sentences.
Explain how and why a writer has used clauses to add information to a sentence.
Use more than one source when carrying out research.
Create a set of notes to summarise what has been read.

19. Year 5 Writing
Add phrases to make sentences more precise and detailed.
Use range of sentence openers – judging the impact or effect needed.
Begin to adapt sentence structure to text type.
Use pronouns to avoid repetition.
Indicate degrees of possibility using adverbs (e.g. perhaps, surely) or modal verbs (e.g. might, should, will).
Use the following to indicate parenthesis:
brackets
dashes
comma
Use commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity.
Link clauses in sentences using a range of subordinating and coordinating conjunctions.
Use verb phrases to create subtle differences (e.g. she began to run).
Consistently organize into paragraphs.
Link ideas across paragraphs using adverbials of time (e.g. later), place (e.g. nearby) and number (e.g. secondly).
Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed.

20. Year 5 Maths
Count forwards and backward with positive and negative numbers through zero.
Count forwards/backwards in steps of powers of 10 for any given number up to 1,000,000.
Compare and order numbers up to 1,000,000.
Compare and order numbers with 3 decimal places.
Read Roman numerals to 1,000.
Identify all multiples and factors, including finding all factor pairs.
Use known tables to derive other number facts.
Recall prime numbers up to 19.
Recognise and use square numbers and cube numbers.
Recognise place value of any number up to 1,000,000.
Round any number up to 1,000,000 to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 or 100,000.
Round decimals with 2 decimal places to nearest whole number and 1 decimal place.
Add and subtract numbers with more than 4-digits using formal written method.
Use rounding to check answers.
Multiply 4-digits by 1-digit/ 2-digit
Divide up to 4-digits by 1-digit
Multiply & divide whole numbers & decimals by 10, 100 and 1,000
Recognise and use thousandths.
Recognise mixed numbers and improper fractions and convert from one to another.
Multiply proper fractions and mixed numbers by whole numbers.
Identify and write equivalent fractions.
Solve time problems using timetables and converting between different units of time.

21. Questions?