Assessment

At St Mark’s Primary School your children are regularly assessed to ensure they make the required progress. These assessments do not solely focus on testing, but also include the feedback to a child after some work (verbally or via marking) and the observation of a child during a lesson. Assessment varies greatly depending on the age of the children and the subject being assessed.

Our Aims for Assessment are:

• to provide feedback to children on their progress and to help them evaluate their own learning

• to help children understand and meet success criteria
• to guide planning for future learning
• to know what each child has achieved against the learning objectives in the scheme of work
• to inform report writing and other information given to parents
• to inform outside agencies where appropriate
• to assist in the monitoring of the school’s performance and to assist its development

Reception

Children are assessed against the EYFSP (Early Years Foundation Stage Profile). This is completed throughout the year  by the child’s teacher making a series of observations and judgements; there is no ‘testing’ of children at this age.

Year One

Near the end of the year, the children have a very short and informal test to check their phonic skills when reading. The children have to read 40 words and the check is administered by school staff. Additionally, throughout the year, your child will be assessed in line with the National Curriculum and against age-expectations.

Year Two

At the end of this year, children sit their SATS tests. These tests are administered and marked by St Mark’s school staff and are used to give an overall judgement on a child’s standards in English and Maths; however, the tests are only used to inform the teachers, rather than be the sole indocator of a child’s ability.

Further information can be viewed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/520553/Information_for_parents_-_2016_NCTs_at_the_end_of_key_stages_1_and_2_27042016__2__PDFA.pdf

Years Three, Four & Five

Children will sit tests throughout the year and will receive regular feedback from their teacher as to how they can improve their work. At the end of the year, each parent will receive their child’s school report which will show how their child has performed against age-expectations, and what the child needs to do next to move their learning on. There are also two formal opportunities to discuss progress at the Autumn & Spring Parents’ Meetings.

Year Six

In May, the children sit SATS tests in Reading, Maths and Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar. These are formal tests which are marked externally. A child’s writing ability is judged by the child’s teacher and based on all the work the child has completed in Year Six. The children will receive their results from their SATS in July.

Further information can be viewed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/520553/Information_for_parents_-_2016_NCTs_at_the_end_of_key_stages_1_and_2_27042016__2__PDFA.pdf

We use these assessment procedures to measure outcomes against all schools nationally:

• End of EYFS (% of pupils achieving a “Good Level of Development”)
• Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1 (% of pupils achieving the required screening check)
• End of KS1 (% of pupils achieving the expected standard, and greater depth within the expected standard.
• End of KS2 pupils achieving the expected standard, and greater depth within the expected standard.
• Progress of children between KS1 and KS2.