Formal Assessment
THE FIRST TEACHER
As your childs' first teacher, you play a big part in how well your son or daughter does in school.
PARTNER WITH US
We invite you to work with our teachers to help students get all they can out of their growing years.
PARENT’S ROLE
Year teams have produced new age-related statement banks which describe the objectives pupil’s need to meet within that academic year. Teachers will make a judgement about each pupil’s attainment in Reading, Writing and Maths. They will need to decide whether the pupil is at age-related expectations for the subjects.
Eg. A pupil in Year 2 who is meeting age related expectations would previously have attained a 2b. The new descriptors indicate this child will now be reported as a ‘National’.
Alongside this teacher’s will need to decide whether the child is meeting some of the objectives – ‘Medium’, meeting most of the objectives – ‘High’ or just beginning to gain them – ‘Low’. This will allow for progress to be tracked in more depth.
Eg. The Year 2 pupil would possibly be reported as a National – High if they were meeting most of the objectives in Year 2.
The pupils will be coded by school year, band, then sub-band eg. This pupil will be a 2NH.
The bands are linked to an underlying points system to enable progress to be measured. This will be set up on SIMS trackers in the same way as the present assessment trackers.
Our teachers and staff are very happy to discuss any child's development with their parent or carer at any time of the year. Please speak to the class teacher f you woud like to know more.
In addition to Parents' Evenings, we also hold 'drop-in' sessions half-termly on a Thursday straight after school, where you can have an informal chat with your child's teacher. To find out more about when our drop-in sessions and parents' evenings are, please have a look at our school calendar. Alternatively, you can contact the school directly.
How can I find out how my child is doing?
In July we provide a written report for parents, indicating the attainment and progress of every child in the school.
Formal reporting to parents
Each teacher will assess children half-termly and children's progress is tracked internally at six specific points in the year.
Assessment and reporting
'it is the mission of the school to provide our children with the highest quality of teaching and learning, to enable them to become aware of and be prepared for the world in which they live and to recognise their vocation and role within it'.
Assessing children and knowing how well they are progressing is a crucial aspect of our work at Thameside Primary School.
We teach the National Curriculum across the school from Years 1 to 6 and the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum in Years N and R.
NEW CURRICULUM ASSESSMENT
Since 2014, we have seen changes to the National Curriculum, and the way in which pupils are assessed. Pupil’s progress and attainment is no longer assessed at NC levels. (Although Year 2 and Year 6 remained unchanged until 2015-2016 as per national requirements).
In accordance with the New National Curriculum and assessing pupils without levels, Thameside has adopted trust-wide performance descriptors for pupils.
Below is a table which indicates the new performance descriptors, alongside their approximate current NC level equivalent.