Assessment for Learning

At Wansdyke School we follow the principles of Assessment for Learning
which enhance whole school assessment and provide daily opportunities for assessment to inform future planning, teaching and learning.

The strategies in place are:

Planning should include higher order questioning to enhance, extend and maximise children’s learning.
Giving children opportunities to self-assess their learning after each lesson encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning
Annotating planning after each lesson in order to inform / adapt future planning and to maximize learning potential.
Providing targeted intervention for children of small groups of children who have not made suitable progress or who have not grasped necessary concepts.
Celebrating what our pupils can do what they know and what they understand e.g. displays around school, presenting work in Assemblies, Headteacher’s ‘Good learning book’ and informing parents.
Encouraging pupils to develop positive attitudes towards learning e.g. setting high standards, praise from adults and peers and developing independence.

Marking and Providing Feedback to Pupils

Feedback is provided to pupils promptly and may be oral or written.
Feedback is made in relation to achievement of learning objectives and steps to success using RTM. Growing green / building blue comments provide suggestions for the next stage of the child’s learning. Information gained from marking contributes towards future planning and progress made in relation to targets. Children receive feedback in the form of ‘tickled pink and growing green’. Please refer to the marking policy for more information.

Reading

Reading is assessed by the teacher through guided reading sessions and assessed against the Ros Wilson Reading criterion scale.
When pupils first arrive in the school, they move through the book banding system. These are monitored by the staff to ensure the pupils are accessing the appropriate level of book to support their reading and are linked to the guided reading and phonics rules covered. Once pupils have shown proficiency in reading, they move onto free reading. In KS2, guided reading sessions focus on assessment of skills within the reading criterion scale for that year group.
Reading tests (BSTS GRT) are carried out during term 1 and again in term 6. These are collated and scrutinized by the Literacy lead. Reading progress is recorded in the Wansdyke Tracker. The school advocates a little and often approach towards assessment. Objectives are assessed 2 weeks after teaching to ensure learning has been committed to memory. Guided reading sheets related to the criterion scale are used to record progress in guided reading sessions.

Writing

Teachers will use the Ros Wilson criterion scale to level children’s independent writing each term. These objectives link to the expectations within each year group.
Writing progress is recorded in the Wansdyke Tracker. The school advocates a little and often approach towards assessment. Objectives need to be observed consistently in pupil’s writing in a range of subjects. Teachers record the mastery of these objectives on a master document to support the input of data.
Writing is a priority in the school and we are currently developing a pre and post writing assessment to demonstrate progress through a genre of writing.

Spelling

Teachers prepare and test spellings weekly in line with the National Curriculum.
Spelling tests (BSTS GRT) are carried out during term 1 and again in term 6. These are collated and scrutinized by the Literacy lead. Spellings are a focus within the school and a consistent approach to spelling is being developed.

Phonics

Teachers use Sounds-Write synthetic phonics programme
We assess phonics skills and understanding regularly and children are grouped according to their ability and the phonics ‘phase’ they are working within. Phonics is formally assessed at the end of Year 1 through the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check which is a standardised test and used across all schools.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, teachers will use objectives from the 2014 National Curriculum on which to base their assessments.
These are tested within the termly Abacus assessment questions. In addition to this, the school hopes to implement a target booklet which will encourage a little and often approach to assessment within mathematics. Objectives will be assessed 2 weeks after teaching to ensure learning has been committed to memory. This information will then be used to populate the Wansdyke tracker and demonstrate progress.