Across the service, we use informative and summative assessment as vehicles to judge the progress our pupils are making and to be able to swiftly intervene and change direction should a pupil not be making sufficient progress and require additional support and intervention.
Every lesson, teachers gage the progress of the pupils in their class by:
- Circulating to support with work and giving immediate feedback
- Asking pupils to give each other feedback and quickly assess each other’s work
- Asking pupils targeted questions to judge their understanding of previous and new information so that changes can be made to teaching if necessary
- Summing up at the end of every lesson with an activity that tests out how much pupils know, understand and can do so that the next lessons can be planned more effectively and tailored to what pupils know and don’t know
Teachers also do assessed tasks / tests regularly so that they can give more in-depth feedback to pupils on their work – what has gone well, and what needs to improve. This deep marking enables pupils to do follow-up activities after the assessment in order to deal with any knowledge gaps or address any issues in their work. The assessed tasks are also used to help teachers make judgements about the progress pupils are making and these judgements go into the regular reports that are sent home to parents. The data generated from these assessments also help teachers change their lesson planning for the next half-term so that work is even more tailored to pupils’ needs.
Our KS4 students will sit a variety of examinations and prepare for external assessments for courses over Year 10 and Year 11. Our aim is to ensure that all KS4 students achieve personalised targets that are set from their KS3 outcomes and also from targeted baseline assessments at the start of Year 10. Examinations take place over Year 10 and Year 11 and we follow national guidance on the administration of examinations and expect the highest standards of conduct during these assessment periods from our students.