AET Life after Levels

Durrington High School

Frank Wise School

• Durrington High School was a co-educational secondary school for students aged 12-18 years. It converted to academy status on 1st April 2014 and from September 2015 will become a standard secondary academy for 11-18 year olds.

• It has developed the “Growth & Thresholds Model” based on the principle that teachers set the standards of excellence that all students should aspire to in their subject.

• A baseline is established using KS2 data and other supporting assessments early in Year 7. This is used to group students into 4 thresholds of excellence, Foundation, Developing and Secure.

• Teachers from each subject area use the new National Curriculum to define the standards for each unit of work in terms of core knowledge and skills.

• Supporting formative assessment gives students ongoing feedback about how to improve. Half-termly / termly summative assessment shows how well students are doing towards the end of the unit of work.

• Special school for pupils aged 2-19.

• Frank Wise School has developed a series of assessments that screen the level of development of basic cognitive skills.

• These assessments address the areas of: Early Learning responses; Auditory discrimination; Visual discrimination; Short-term memory; Categorisation skills and Sequencing.

• The system is used for all children at the point of entry, allowing a better understanding of the child’s individual learning needs.

• This then allows teachers to develop individualised targets therefore enabling the child to make tangible progress.

• The system has also been used in mainstream schools to target early intervention.

Westminster Academy

• Mainstream academy for 11-18 year olds.

• The academy has developed a percentage score system to reflect a student’s mastery of the curriculum

• The curriculum for each subject is broken down into distinct topics – approximately 15 per year.

• The system provides detailed data on each topic linked to the new National Curriculum

• Each topic is independently assessed by an in-class quiz, a set of homework and an end of term exam. Performance on these is combined to give an overall score per topic.

• An overall score per subject is given by averaging all topics studied to date.

• Each student’s performance across the entire curriculum is mapped by topic, strand and skill. Students receive a percentage score to reflect their mastery of a topic and can easily understand what they need to do to improve.

• Teachers can clearly see what content a student has mastered and use the formative assessment to coordinate interventions and guide planning.

West Exe School

STAT Sheffield

• 11-16 years mainstream comprehensive

• West Exe have collaborated with other schools to create a cross phase system

• The model focuses on Blooms Taxonomy.

• There are learning ladders for each subject and key stage all in a common format.

• Each rung on the ladder is an objective linked to the new national curriculum for each subject and is a series of steps that increase in challenge and complexity.

• The ladder forms a practical checklist to inform pupils, teachers and parents of what has been learnt and the next steps in learning

• Ladders should be used as periodic reviews of learning and in summative assessments. Accuracy of assessment judgements are moderated.

Swiss Cottage School

Trinity Academy

• Swiss Cottage School is for children aged 2-19 years with complex learning difficulties, emotional, behavioural and communication difficulties.

• Swiss Cottage School has developed a series of ‘Progression Planners’ for the Special Education community.

• Themed around priority areas for individuals the planners are used by teachers to establish developmental learning goals.

• They are an assessment system based on precise outcomes and so allow for tracking progress and reporting to parents.

• The Sheffield Assessment system has been developed by a partnership of more than 50 Sheffield schools

• School Tracking and Assessment Tools has been devised to support assessment and planning from Early Years through to KS2 for children at all stages of attainment.

• The curriculum has been divided into learning steps, with 3 steps for each chronological year. Entering, Developing and Secure.

• Some schools may choose to sub-divide each bank into two, Pre-entering, Pre-developing and Pre-secure to allow very small steps of progress to be measured.

• Pupils can be assessed on any step at any time regardless of actual age.

• Steps are colour coded to help with the explanation to any audience.

• If pupils are assessed as being on the typical step for their age at a particular time of year, they will be at a Good Level of Development (GLD). Schools will be able to produce data showing how cohorts, groups and individual pupils are performing in relation to GLD. It will also show how much progress pupils will need to make to reach GLD or beyond.

• Some skills are considered essential aspects for pupils to understand in order to be able to progress and understand similar aspects at a later stage. These must be evidenced as embedded at a secure level before moving on.

• Trinity Academy is an 11-18 year olds free school.

• They have developed a Mastery Pathway for KS1 through to KS3.

• Trinity Academy have broken down the new National Curriculum content into units, these translate to planned teaching programmes of study for lessons and subsequent category tests for English, Maths and Science.

• The assessement system is broken down into five main stages: Launch, Breakthrough, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

• Each stage is then broken down into a number of steps. Students must demonstrate mastery of a step before moving on.

• Students are regularly tested to demonstrate what they know and what they need to do next.

• The expectation is that an average student will progress two steps a year.

Hiltingbury Junior School

Classroom Monitor

• Hiltingbury Junior School have withdrawn from the Innovation Assessment Fund

• Mainstream Junior School – KS2

• Have developed Learning Ladders

• Focuses on the core subjects of Reading, Writing and Maths

• Each subject area has booklets of objectives linked to the new National Curriculum

• Each objective is a rung on the ladder made up of a series of ‘I can…’ statements

• Each objective has 3 boxes to be signed/dated by the teacher once the pupil has met that objective.

• Pupils can clearly identify their next steps.

• Easy to share with parents

• School is working on an online system with SchoolExplained which will be available to purchase

• Teachers record assessment judgements, targets and evidence of learning into the curriculum-mapped online markbooks. These are based on the Rising Stars progression framework.

• Rising Stars uses the Beginning, Developing, Secure and Exceeding terminology to demonstrate depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding.

• The Progression Framework breaks down the new National Curriculum into key statements for each year.

• Each progression statement is accompanied by three ‘what to look for’ guidance notes to help teachers to evaluate individual pupil progress and identify next steps.

• The ‘what to look for’ guidance is linked to the assessment criteria to support robust teacher assessment judgements, moderation and evidence gathering.

Capita SIMs

Hillyfield Primary Academy

• In the summer 2014 release SIMs included a progress grid that allowed schools to record every element of the new National Curriculum for KS1 and KS2.

• They have now released an improved version splitting the grid into separate tabs for each foundation subject.

• Schools can record knowledge by subject and strand; End of year and end of key stage expectations; Statutory and non statutory requirements.

• SIMs use the naming structure of, emerging, developing, secure and mastered.

• A new overall assessment for the subject can now be entered to record the pupil’s assessment in terms of an age related expectation.

• The grids are free and available to download for SIMs users.

• Mainstream Primary Academy. Early years through to KS2

• Have developed a Skills Passport to be maintained throughout KS1 and KS2

• Shows pupil progress in key skills in all foundation subjects through a series of ‘I can…..’ statements linked to the new National Curriculum

• On demonstrating mastery of a skill children stamp that skill in the passport

• Different coloured stamps demonstrate the year of achievement which allows tracking of the rate of achievement

• Pupils develop a clear understanding of their own abilities and what they need to do next to progress

• Teachers use for planning to ensure coverage and development of skills

• Easy to share with parents

• Hillyfield have worked with a local secondary school to ensure pupils have all the skills for a successful start to KS3.

Target Tracker

• Target Tracker have developed their EYFS Tracker to work for all key stages under the new curriculum

• They have devised a system of steps linked to the new National Curriculum statements.

• Each year band had been broken down into 6 steps: Beginning, Beginning +, working within, working within+, secure and secure+.

• Beginning – Pupil learning is chiefly focussed on the criteria for the band. There may be minimal elements of the previous band still to gain complete confidence in.

• Working Within – Pupil learning is fully focussed on the criteria for the band. Up to 70% of the statements are confidently achieved.

• Secure – Confidence in all of the criteria for the band. There may be pupil learning still focussed on gaining thorough confidence in some minimal elements but the broad expectations for the band have been met.

• To allow for tracking and analysis of progress TT have invented a one point scale so that schools can monitor pupil attainment in the context of age related expectation.

• For children to be working at age related expectation they would need to reach the secure step at the end of the appropriate year. Secure+ demonstrates the foundation from which a pupil may proceed onto the criteria in the following band.

Assessment tracking systems already out there...