Assessment

We assess children regularly in order to ensure that they are making at least expected progress, and to plan for future learning. 

Teacher Feedback

Teacher feedback is defined as ‘information given by a teacher to pupil(s) about their performance that aims to improve learning’ (Higgins et al).

We believe that teacher feedback must:

• Support learning
• Build learning
• Address misconceptions

The principles of effective feedback at St Anselm’s School are:

• Lay the foundations for effective feedback, with high-quality initial teaching that includes careful formative assessment
• Deliver appropriately timed feedback that focuses on moving learning forward
• Plan for how pupils will receive and use feedback using strategies to ensure that pupils will act on the feedback offered 

Please see our Teacher Feedback policy below for further information:

Teacher Feedback Policy

 Assessment Procedures

Assessment procedures measure children’s depth of understanding against end of year expectations for their year group. The majority of children will achieve expected standards at the end of the year. Some children will be working towards expected standards and some will go beyond and will demonstrate an ability to work at a great depth.

Formative assessment

This is regular assessment that informs future learning. Examples of formative assessment are:

• Teacher assessment based on day to day tasks
• Children’s own self-assessment of their outcomes
• The use of effective marking and feedback
• Talk partners, ie, children working together to support each other and suggest next steps
• Personalised targets
• The use of clear success criteria to help children to know what they need to do to achieve, and to improve

Summative assessment

This is used to measure children’s attainment at a particular point in time, and is often used at the end of a unit or the end of a term. We use a number of different assessments for this, such as:

• NFER tests in Years 3-5
• Former SATs papers
• The PUMA and PIRA assessments

All summative assessments and formative assessments help teachers to form an overall judgement of a child’s achievements. These are recorded on the school’s tracking system – Pupil Asset, and are reported to parents at mid-term meetings and as part of the end of year report.

All children in Year 1 undertake the statutory Phonics Screening Test and all children in Years 2 and 6 undertake statutory testing for the end of the Key Stage.

Informal assessments are used to baseline children in the EYFS on entry to reception. All reception children are assess using the Early Years' Profile at the end of the year.