Assessment at Falconhurst

Assessment for Years 1,3,4 & 5

At Falconhurst School, each pupil is assessed as emerging, developing, expected or mastering within their year group. Teachers gather together lots of information from the children’s daily learning and occasional assessments to make sure that their judgements are accurate for each child.
Primary school children are no longer given a national ‘level’ so at Falconhurst our children’s progress is measured in ‘Steps’.
We aim to ensure that most children complete each year at the ‘expected’ standard. Some children may be ‘Working at Greater Depth’ which means that they can use and apply their learning in a wide range of ways and across lots of subjects. Where some children are still developing their learning towards an expected standard, we make sure that programmes of support are in place to help them catch up if possible.
Assessment judgements are recorded and backed by a body of evidence created using observations, records of work and testing.
Assessment judgements are moderated by Leaders across the school (within and across Phase teams), the Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher and by colleagues in other schools to make sure our assessments are fair, reliable and valid.

Assessment serves many purposes, but the main purpose of assessment in our school is to help teachers, parents and pupils plan their next steps in learning.
We also use the outcomes of assessment to check and support our teaching standards and help us improve.
Through working with other schools and using external tests and assessments, we will compare our performance against other schools.
We assess pupils progress and successes against clear checklists which tell us what each pupil is expected to know and be able to do during that school year as part of the National Curriculum.
Our Step assessments also help us to measure the very small steps of progress that some of our most vulnerable children make each year. Pre-National Curriculum steps ensure that every child can enjoy the success of achievement.
Within our school, children’s progress is reported half termly so that ‘coasting children’ can be supported more swiftly and that targets can be re-set to reflect an ambitious learning trajectory for each child.

Teachers use the outcomes of our assessments to summarise and analyse attainment and progress for their pupils and classes.
Teachers use this data to plan the learning for every pupil to ensure they meet or exceed expectations. Teachers and leaders analyse the data across the school to ensure that pupils identified as vulnerable or at particular risk in this school are making appropriate progress and that all pupils are suitably stretched, challenged and made to think.
The information from assessment is shared with parents and pupils on a termly basis at Parent Evening or end of year reporting. These opportunities allow parents and pupils to receive rich and accurate accounts of what has been achieved by their child and what they need to do next.
We celebrate all achievements across a broad and balanced curriculum, including sport, art and performance, behaviour, and social and emotional development.