1. Peter Olsen Meath Green Junior School Horley, Surrey
Using InCAS
Peter Olsen
Meath Green Junior School
Horley, Surrey

2. A little background Who we are Where we are How we operate
Children yrs – 3 form entry children
Well-balanced staff – from post NQT’s to experienced old-timers like myself [25 years this year]
Main intake is from an equally popular local infant school with a reputation for very high KS1 SAT scores
We are based very close to Gatwick Airport and so many of our children’s families have connections there – many professionals but also many Low-Skill, High Wage employees too. Horley is on the Victoria line to Central London so many of our parents are City commuters. Quite a few teachers from other schools send their children to us – I find that very affirming.
Child-centred environment – we encourage independent thinking and are well-thought of by the Secondary schools that we feed to.
We’ve always tried to integrate the best of new practice into our teaching without losing sight of our core values:
Respect, Motivation, Cooperation, Challenge, Happiness, Inclusion, Value
We believe that schools are places where learning should be exciting and purposeful.
We don’t believe that coaching a child in test strategies does anything except prepare them for taking tests.

3. What we were looking for
An alternative to SATS
A Diagnostic Tool
Tracking
SATs – on this day, in this exercise, this child achieved this level [and this sub-level] – how is this useful?
Give teachers no new data beyond what they see in everyday work - except, perhaps - how the children perform in test conditions.
The most able are capped at L3 for KS1 and L5 for KS2 and, of course, the next stage up will always take this as 3C or 5C for obvious reasons of Value-Added scores.
A little history:
When I joined the Y3 team, we received 90 children - 68 of whom came in with level 2a or higher in Maths [42 of them were level 3]!
This means that there is no way at all that we could add value to the Level 3’s as KS2 SATs are capped at level 5 and a very good chance that some of these children could make less than the 2 levels progress and therefore have reduced VA.
A similar situation arose when the following cohort joined us.
We wanted a system that was useful to us a teachers and teaching assistants too. a system that would raise questions in our minds and motivate us to look for answers and ways forward. A system to help us to help our children to learn more effectively. But also a system that was manageable so that we would refer to it as a matter of course without getting bogged down in microscopic detail. a system whose administration was straightforward and which provided useful data quickly.
We wanted a system to help us track the progress of our children without it becoming intrusive or onerous for them in their learning and us in our teaching. What we wanted was a system like InCAS!

4. How we use InCAS A little history Year 3 - on entry
Years progress
All years - More Able / Less Able & “Wild Cards”
So – here we are - a Junior School taking most of our children from one main infant school but also smaller numbers from up to half a dozen others.
Interestingly, we had found that the PIPs on entry to Y3 tests that were being administered by Surrey CC to plan their SEN funding for schools gave us very accurate predictions that were closely matched by the children’s final SAT scores in Y6.
Having attended a conference led by Christine and Peter at which InCAS was introduced - I decided that this could give us a benchmark and lots of useful data to help us plan for the needs of every child. and so ...
Year 3 - on entry - The children use InCAS during the first full week at the school - they start with the attitudes assessment to get used to the system. These younger children are watched over by a team of Teaching Assistants to try and ensure that they are focused and attentive [as you might expect - some slip through but we are getting better at spotting the signs]. The sessions are calm - almost relaxed and children slip in and out of the suite without any sense of pressure.
The tests are then uploaded with results coming back pretty much overnight - amazing!
As year group leader, I then visit all the feeder schools to share the data with the Y2 teachers and explore any anomalies with them.
On advice from CEM, we have not re-tested children whose scores have been different from the Y2 teachers’ expectations - merely annotating the data sheets. It’s only one set of data, although it is very useful.
A couple of weeks later, we use the PIPS paper assessments and it is clear that a lot of children have a completely different attitude to these - the “academics” are confident and keen, the less able are nervous and uncertain.
It’s very interesting comparing the 2 sets of results, although there is quite a long wait for the PIPS data to come back to us.
So - what do we do immediately?
Setting for Maths & Spellings are based on a combination of Data from Y2 [where available]
Main feeder uses Letters & Sounds scheme and keeps comprehensive records - others don’t.
We also share our sets lists with the Infant schools to see if they have any comments or amendments
Special Needs register - compare children with IEPs against the relevant data provided by InCAS.
More Able / G&T register - compare with data sent up by infant schools and then add names onto provisional lists.
Readers - any child scoring below 7 years reading age was immediately put onto the Reading Scheme and parents were invited to special meeting to discuss why we had done it and what the next steps were.
Maths - any children who showed a significant area of weakness in their Maths scores were added to the list for SNAP maths reinforcement sessions relevant to their weaknesses.
In Years there is the added advantage of being able to compare children’s progress from one test to the next. We’ve only done this once and there was not a full 12 months between the 2 tests but a lot of interesting questions arose - as much about an apparent regression as about progress. At the moment, the way the data is presented makes it difficult to track groups or cohorts easily but we are looking forward to an InCAS version of the excellent IDEAS+ software which is so easy and so useful. As soon as teachers [and support staff] have the data you can see them looking for anomalies - the first point of call is invariably the previous teacher. “What can you tell me about this child?” “Is this what you would expect?” and alternatively - “Oh, that’s a bit surprising” or - “That’s bang on for him/her”. The great thing is that you have a starting point - it might trigger off a little bell immediately or, alternatively, it might be a few weeks later and you’re thinking - this child’s work is not matching her/his InCAS scores. Whichever way - it raises questions and we, as professionals, are driven to find answers.
Just as a postscript - I have to say that the current Y6’s second batch of results was very different from the first batch - many of the less able had shown huge levels of progress and this was reflected in their work and the judgment of their Y5 teachers. Some - many of whom were certainly capable enough students - had shown a significant drop relative to their previous scores. The Deputy Head took them all for a little chat and then made them retake the tests. This time around, their scores were much more in line with expectations. That’s just a reminder that children are children and some are more so than others!
More Able / Less Able & Wild Cards
A few words on this:
The charts are very useful for spotting children who are significantly in advance of or behind expected levels for their age. It gives you a quick view of children who are not where you expect them to be. The InCAS data has flagged up some children whose work and their SAT levels on entry, have given no clue to their true ability - indeed, because the SAT scoring system limits the top level that a child can achieve, it is very affirming to have InCAS to confirm that a child is operating at 4+ years in advance of her/his chronological age.

5. Case Study 1 The under-achiever?
For today, this young lady will be known as Maddie.
She’s charming, friendly, a great listener and a good observer – and once she has picked up something – it sticks – metaphorically.
She came in from a tiny infant school along with just 2 other classmates.
My notes from her Y2 CT read: Low ability in Maths & Literacy, Good listener. Makes connections in Science. Confident speaker.
So … let’s take a look at some of her InCAS Data.
Reading: pretty low - as expected.
Maths: perhaps a little better than one might expect.
So let’s break down the reading for a closer look:
These short whiskers on the word recognition and spelling are telling me that the software is pretty confident about those scores.
The Word Decoding and Comprehension plots are telling me a different story – much less confidence.
Could there be an issue here?
Here’s her Developed Ability chart. Now it doesn’t look promising but those confidence whiskers are pretty stretched out.
… and always – rattling at the back of my mind is how she is in the classroom – truly a sponge for knowledge and ideas.
Let’s take a look at what she has written in her dictation book…

6. A couple of digit reversals, no inversions, words are evenly spaced, everything is phonically plausible. But…
A couple of digit reversals, no inversions, words are spaced evenly, everything is phonically plausible.
But …
This was being copied off a slip of paper printed in 16 point Arial typeface.
Her free-writing is even more revealing. Her ideas reflect an imaginative, creative mind but she struggles to show it in her writing, and reading is also really hard work – although she always puts in 100%. This is a child with a problem. We’re supporting her as best we can – she’s on the school reading scheme, being heard 2/3 times a week individually. She works in a small group with me or my TA, whenever possible. This, at least reduces her sense of failure as we can scribe her ideas for her before they are lost in her bubbling mind.
A sign of our overloaded support system is the fact that Maddie is still waiting to be assessed for dyslexia.
With luck, she’ll be seen before the end of this term … but I’m not holding my breath.

7. Case Study 2 The High-Flyers
Meet Phillip and Kylie and Sebastian and Arabella.
Phillip: Quick, keen, competitive, all-rounder – sports as well as academics
Reading seems a bit low – let’s take a look at the breakdown.
A dip on the comprehension exercise has pulled him right down. I had a chat with his parents – “Does he read a lot?” – well, yes, but mostly “Horrid Henry – we can’t seem to get him to move on from there” – I gave them a more challenging booklist and he is Michael Morpurgo’s number 1 fan! And I expect that his comprehension scores will be higher next time around too.
Kylie – shy, quiet, diligent.
Reading Maths are the other way round – let’s take a look at those maths modules
A bit weak on number 1 {I’ll have to look up what that includes]
A bit weak of Measurement Shape & Space – make a note for when we get to those topics.
Sebastian’s interests are: reading … and finding out about everything – He loves trips to new places, adores museums, built some bricks for James May’s lego house – I think you get the picture. … and why is his reading score so very high? A chat with Mum and it turns out that he was quite sickly when he was very young and learned to read at a very early age. And now he is older, he wants to learn everything about everything. That Maths looks okay but … he came in on a level 3 – any issues there?
Hmm – no score at all for Number 1 – I did ask Brian Henderson about this and I’m pretty sure that it meant that his answers were too diverse for the software to come to a decision – there’s certainly some longer whiskers on the other areas – nerves, perhaps? I wasn’t too worried as he was due to join my Maths group anyway and it turns out that he is a very intelligent boy who has to work hard to understand mathematical concepts. And he does.
Let’s take a look at Arabella:
Like Sebastian and Kylie, she is stronger on the reading than the Maths
And here’s what we need to keep an eye open for.

8. Case Study 3 The value of the bigger picture
We’ll call this young man Gregory.
Here’s his Reading score – bang on target for his age.
Here’s his Maths – very much the same.
Fairly short whiskers - showing pretty good levels of confidence.
Now – here’s his Developed Ability – an underachiever perhaps?
Take a look at the breakdown –
non-verbal a bit weak – that’s about right for a six-year old –
picture vocab very strong – that’s 4 years in advance of his age..
He was the first child on my list when I visited his infant school.
Response from his previous teacher – “Oh those are surprising – tell me about these tests.”
So I did – and she even had a go at one of the tests on my laptop – although, obviously, I didn’t upload her data!
Within minutes she had an answer for me. In any assessment situation, this boy treats it like a race. He loves computers and would have shot through the assessments as fast as he could. That’s good for the Developed Ability tests as there is a strong time factor built into the scoring system – not so good for the other tests.
I had a chat with the Teaching Assistant over-seeing the tests and she said – Oh, yes – he was in and out almost before I realised!
… and another little note went down on our list of things to watch out for next year.

9. And Finally – tracking.
This is really in its infancy as we’ve only used InCAS twice but I thought I’d show you a couple of our older children
This young lady is doing very much as we might hope.

10. This quiet young man came up with some scores that were quite a pleasant surprise to his new teacher.

11. Scores like these, however, are a little more worrying.
Possibly it could be connected with the timing of the assessments.
The first assessment was taken in February – well into the school year
The second was taken within a week or so of returning from the 5-week Summer break,
The child in question has been described as somewhat “moody” - could it have been a bad day?
I guess we’ll have a clearer picture next September.

12. Thank you for listening.