Assessments

Accurate and regular assessment is a key aspect of facilitating learning: it enables teaching staff to monitor and track pupils' progress in order to ensure that subsequent activities are well-pitched to meet children's needs.

At Crawford Village Primary School, pupils' progress is assessed in a number of different ways:

Formative assessment

The aim of formative assessment is for staff to recognise how a child has understood a particular concept and offer timely and appropriate support if they fail to demonstate a secure level of understanding. Formative assessment is conducted on a daily basis and informs subsequent lessons and activities.
When a child submits a piece of work, teachers take time to review the child's responses to ascertain whether of not they have met the objective of the lesson. Where misconceptions arise, the teacher will look to support the child, either through a subsequent face-to-face discussion or in marking feedback.  The child is then given the opportunity to make the necessary ammendments to their initial responses in order to demonstrate their new understanding. We call this 'tip, think, challenge'. 
 

Summative assessment

In order to track pupils' progress and to check on their retention of previous learning, pupils are formally assessed three times through the year, plus a baseline. Following these assessements, and in light of their day-to-day responses, teachers make a judgement on a pupil's performance against age-related expectations. These judements are:

• Working towards age-related expectations. This judgement is awarded where children are unlikley to satisfy the demands of their age-related expectations by the end of the academic school year. At times, children who are working towards age-related expectations may receive additional support through a specific intervention or through in-class group support with teachers or teaching assistants. Where children's performance is significantly below that of age related expectations, external professionals may assist in investigating whether the child has any specific barriers to learning which may inform future practice.
• Working at age-expected standard: This judgement illustrates that the child is performing within the expected boundaries for their age. Typically, most pupils will be working at age-expected standards.
• Working beyond age-related expectations: Pupils who are awarded this judgement are consistenly performing above the expectations of a child of their age. They show greater flair in their work and can utilise a range of different features with great precision. Few children nationally will be working at this level.

Statutory assessments

As a requirement of the DfE, pupils will undertake statutory testing at key points throughout their time at primary school. These tests provide the data which is then verified and used in national comparisons. The complete set of statutory tests are:

• Reception: Reception Baseline Assessment
• Year 1: Phoncs Screening Test
• Year 2: Reading (2 papers), Mathematics (2 papers). Writing is teacher assessed therefore pupils do not sit a writing test. Evidence is gathered throughout the course of the year and verified by external moderators. Please note - the Year 2 (KS1) tests become non-statutory from Summer 2024.
• Year 4: Multiplication Tables Check (MTC)
• Year 6: Reading (1 paper), Mathematics (3 papers), English Punctuation, Spelling & Grammar (2 papers). Writing is teacher assessed therefore pupils do not sit a writing test. Evidence is gathered throughout the course of the year and verified by external moderators.