What is Assessment?

During their time at Our Lady and St Kenelm Primary School, children will be assessed in many ways, both formally and informally using a combination of on-going teacher assessments and formal tests.  The results of these assessments are used to measure progress, enable teachers to plan appropriately and inform parents of their child’s achievements.

Teacher assessment is carried out on a day-to-day basis and is an integral part of the teaching process.  Class teachers use many different methods to find out about each child’s skills, knowledge and understanding; for example talking and listening to children, marking work and observing children as they work and play.

Ongoing Assessments

Staff use an assessment tool called Target Tracker to make ongoing assessments throughout Teaching and Learning. Children are moved in steps every 1/2 term for Reading, Writing and Maths and termly for the other subjects.  Each child is expected to make 6 steps progress from their starting point from the beginning of the academic year to remain track.

Children's progress in Reading, Writing and Maths is shared with parents 2x per year. In Autumn and Spring Parental Consultation Evenings.

Attainment in all subjects is reported to parents in the Summer through the End of Year Report.

Formal assessments

Children in Reception are currently assessed using the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile.  It is a statutory requirement for all children in Reception to be assessed using this profile.  The Profile is extremely comprehensive and looks at all aspects of a child’s development.

In Year 1, children's knowledge of phonics is assessed using the statutory Phonic Screening Check.

Children in Year 2 and Year 6 also take part in statutory assessments (SATs).

For Year 2, Teacher Assessment is the primary outcome.  This will be reported to parents.  The test results are used to inform the teachers’ judgements and do not form a stand-alone assessment of how your child has achieved against the Year 2 curriculum.  Children are assessed in reading, writing, maths and science.

In Year 6, children are tested in English, grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS), reading and maths. They are also given a teacher assessment level for writing and science.  Following the removal of the national curriculum levels, Scaled Scores are used to report Year 6 test outcomes.  For the KS2 tests a scaled score of 100 represents the ‘expected standard’.

Information about all these assessments is shared with parents during consultation evenings and in the End of Year school report.

For further information please refer to the School's Assessment Policy in the School Policies section of this website.