Another interesting, challenging, frustrating, uncertain, worrying year in the primary sector of the English education system is working it’s way towards end of year.
How many of our pupils will be ARE or ARE+?
What will the criteria / standard be nationally for these?
What will Raise Online look like?
How is data / pupil outcomes being discussed for Performance Management?
(I could go on)
At our school, we have trialled our Assessment Journeys Version 2, with Y1-Y3 this academic year (we only have YR-Y3 currently).
We have managed reasonably well for teachers to focus on the learning of the pupils, how secure they are, what trends there are in their class or groups within their class…but not to be too focused on hitting data points. In fact one of my favourite conversations this year was in November when our Year 3 teacher admitted she hadn’t even considered the percentage totals as she had been focused on which objectives the pupils had or had not made some progress with. Exactly the approach we wanted!
We have redefined how we are classifying
- Working Towards / Apprentice
- Mastery of End of Year Expectations (ARE)
- Exceeding / Deep Learner (ARE+)
We have also focused on not getting too hung up about percentage totals, but spent more time discussing evidence from pupils books and conversations.
We’ve also spent time discussing and creating learning journeys of examples we might expect to see for each step for a few example NC objectives. This development work has been enhanced by the excellent work of @sarahmu14 on moving our thinking on through SOLO Taxonomy.
Below are copies of Version 3 of our Assessment Journeys, which we plan to use from September 2016 in Y1-Y4.
Also below is a copy of the Foundation Subjects Assessment Journeys we have spent time developing this year and are starting to trial this term. This was initially created with expertise and a huge amount of work by:
Vikki Baker-Grunnill; Warren Beadell; Ali Clarke; Zoe Evans; Jen Johnson; Clare Slowther and Steve Summerton
We owe them a huge debt of thanks for all their hard work.
Finally I have also attached our new Assessment and Standards policy, which has clarified our thinking and the processes we have developed over the past 12 months.
Please feel free to use, adapt, share or ignore any of the documents as you wish.
All the best to everyone for your end of year data / pupil outcomes.
Foundation Assessment Journeys master
Assessment and Standards policy Mar 16
timjumpclarke 
Comments on: "Primary Assessment Journeys May 2016" (6)
How do you differentiate between requirements for example between years 5 and 6 for reading? We have developed our own systems too and have maintained the same objectives for 5/6 and 3/4 but intend to adapt to each year group based on the texts used. We are compiling an age related booklist. I’m interested in how others are addressing this.
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Really good point. With our current Y3 we have set different data points to reach by the end of Y3 in Reading and Writing. However these have been chosen as a trail at the moment and we are waiting to see if the data we get seems realistic in terms of the pupils work and learning and how it then feeds into data next year when the class complete Y4.
Aiming for all pupils to be within a 45%-50% range and Deeper Learners to be within a 60%-65% range by the end of Y3. But his may be setting it too high. Next year by end of Y4 we would be looking for all pupils to be at 67% and Deeper Learners to be at 85%.
However what is most important is how teachers assess against specific objectives and use that info to inform their planning. Keep trying to see the data / numbers as a secondary by product and not the driving force.
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