Assessment and Progress Tracking
Following the statutory changes to the National Curriculum in September 2014, we have implemented a new and effective assessment system that will provide reliable information to you about how your child is performing. It will help to drive improvement for children and teachers ensuring school is keeping up with external practice and innovation.
At Marsh Hill we believe assessment should:
- Provide children with appropriate feedback on their learning.
- Provide class teachers with assessment opportunities designed to support planning and implementation of a curriculum that meets the needs of each child.
- Provide information that will assist the early identification of specified support so that all children can achieve their full potential.
- Provide you with a clear and accurate sense of your child’s achievements and progress, as well as areas where you can support development at home.
- We feel that the ‘Target Tracker’ software we have chosen to record our assessments will deliver this.
To track and monitor pupil attainment and progress, teachers will now use ‘Target Tracker’ to assess children using a system of ‘steps’ (rather than ‘levels’). The terminology has now changed where each year group is now referred to as a ‘Band’ (e.g.: Year 1 = Band 1; Year 2 = Band 2 etc.).
It is further broken down into six sections:
- Beginning (b) - Children are starting to learn content in their band. There may be minimal elements of the previous band still to gain complete confidence in. Adult support required.
- Beginning plus (b+) – Some adult support but moving to independence and up to around 40% of the content has been achieved
- Working within (w) - Children’s learning is focused on their band
- Working within plus (w+) - Children’s learning is fully focused on their band and up to around 70% of the content has been achieved
- Secure (s) - Children are competent in their band and up to approximately 90%coverage of the content has been achieved. Children may still need to build confidence in using and applying some elements. Working independently with reminders before the task.
- Secure+ (s+) [Mastery] - Children are 100% secure in all areas in their band and can show confidence and competence in repeatedly applying the skills they have learnt.
Each band is broken into two parts to enable progress within the band to be evident. For example, a pupil may be assessed as Band 2 Beginning (2b) in the autumn term in Year 2. The next time the teacher records their assessment they may not feel that the pupil has progressed to Working Within (w), but the pupil has made progress. An assessment of Beginning plus (2b+) will allow that progress to be shown
For children to be ‘on track’ within each band, they would need to reach the Secure/Secure+ step at the end of the appropriate year. For example: at the end of Y1 children would be expected to achieve ‘Band 1S/S+’.
For children to be working at age related expectation, they would need to reach the secure (s) step at the end of the appropriate year. It is important for children to have opportunities to apply their understanding in a range of challenging real life contexts, and to demonstrate their mastery of particular skills at a deep and thorough level before moving on. We would expect children who are ‘secure’ in the band they are working on to have these experiences. We expect children to be working at the ‘secure+ mastery’ step in readiness for the next academic year when they will move into the next band. Pupils who have gained a secure (s) understanding of a programme of study should be provided with extension work to deepen and consolidate their understanding of the concepts and skills already grasped.
At half termly intervals, teachers select a step to show where each pupil is working. Lower and higher achieving pupils may be working at a band outside of their current year, and can be recorded as such. This means we are able to monitor pupil attainment in the context of age related expectation and progress over time to help children reach the new secondary ready standard. Interim reports will be sent out to parents during the Autumn, Spring terms.
