UPDATE: What will happen to exams in 2021 as a result of COVID-19?

The 2021 national curriculum assessments, including key stage 2 tests and teacher assessments, have been cancelled.

Arrangements for 2021/22 will be published in the autumn term.

 

National Testing

Early Years – Nursery & Reception

Children in Nursery and Reception will continue to be assessed against the Prime and Specific areas of Learning in the EYFS profile.

Assessments will be based on observation of daily activities and events. At the end of Reception for each Early Learning Goal, teachers will judge whether a child is meeting the level of development expected at the end of the Reception year:

• Emerging, not yet reached the expected level of development
• Expected
• Exceeding, beyond the expected level of development for their age

Progress will be tracked using Learning Journals and pupils’ achievements will be shared with parents.

Information about Early years foundation stage assessment and reporting arrangements (ARA) October 2019 can be found by clicking here.

Assessment Framework- Reception Baseline Assessment (a statutory assessment for all maintained primary, first and infant schools in England from autumn 2020)

Purpose of the assessment
The purpose of the reception baseline assessment is to provide an on-entry assessment
of pupil attainment to be used as a starting point from which a cohort-level progress
measure to the end of key stage 2 (KS2) can be created.

From September all new primary school pupils will take the new reception baseline assessment (RBA) that will replace SATs in Year 2.

Following successful pilots all over the country, the RBA, a one-to-one exercise done in 20 minutes with a teacher in an informal setting, will be taken by all children in their first six weeks of primary school.

The move paves the way for the removal of the national curriculum assessments at the end of key stage 1 from 2022/23 – commonly known as SATs – when pupils are aged six- or seven-years-old.

Year 1 Phonics

Click here and Oxford Owl will give you all the information you need about the Phonics Screening Test for Y1 pupils!

What is the phonics screening check?
The phonics screening check is a quick and easy check of your child’s phonics knowledge. It helps your school confirm whether your child has made the expected progress.

How does the check work?
 Your child will sit with a teacher he or she knows and be asked to read 40 words aloud.
 Your child may have read some of the words before, while others will be completely new.
 The check normally takes just a few minutes to complete and there is no time limit. If your child is struggling, the teacher will stop the check. The check is carefully designed not to be stressful for your child.

The tests are taken in June.

Information about Year 1 Phonics Testing can be found by clicking here.

Key Stage 1 Tests (Year 2)

Click here for national curriculum assessment results at the end of key stage 1 2019

Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) Year 4

Do you have a child in year 4 at primary school?
If so, they will be taking the statutory multiplication tables check (MTC) for the first time, in June this year.
The purpose of the check is to determine whether pupils can fluently recall their times tables up to 12, which is essential for future success in mathematics. It will also help your child’s school to identify pupils who may need additional support.

The MTC is an on-screen check consisting of 25 times tables questions. Your child will answer 3 practice questions before moving on to the offcial check, and will then have 6 seconds to answer each question. On average, the check should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete.
MTC has been extensively trialled and tested over its development. In March 2018 we ran a trial with over 1000 pupils to establish an appropriate time limit for year 4 pupils to demonstrate fuent recall and give them the time to input their answers. During the national voluntary pilot in June 2019, just under 400,000 children successfully sat the check with the 6-second time limit.

Click here for further information in the Parents’ Guide.

Key Stage 2 Tests (Year 6)

Click here for – Information for parents: national curriculum assessment results at the end of key stage 2 2019

Click here for letter explaining Scaled Scores KS2

Click here for information about Primary Progress Measures

Click here for Parents’ Y6 SATs Guide

Click here for Y6 Exam Hints and Tips

Assessment without levels at Dunn Street

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Following the introduction of a new National Curriculum framework from September 2014, the Government also decided to remove level descriptors.  The Government’s policy of removing level descriptors from the National Curriculum was set out in terms of freeing schools from an imposed measure of pupil progress. The Department for Education said that levels were not easy to interpret and were hard for parents to understand how far their child was improving. In their place, from September 2014, “it will be for schools to decide how they assess pupils’ progress”.

With levels removed, and the focus now on raising the achievement of every pupil, Dunn Street’s governors, leaders and teachers chose a new way to measure pupil attainment and progress.

Our assessment system

The school welcomed the changes in the National Curriculum and saw it as an exciting opportunity to review our assessment and reporting systems to create a more holistic approach that makes sense to parents.  We were very clear that whatever assessment tool we used, it needed to be robust and track pupils’ progress across the school and not just at the end of a Key Stage.

The principles that underpin our assessment system are:

• Every child can achieve: teachers at Dunn Street have the mindset, ‘What do I need to do next to enable a child in my class to achieve?’
• The National Curriculum objectives will be used as the expectations for all children.
• Children will make age appropriate progress – 12 months in 12 months.
• Teachers are experts at assessment – formative assessment will be effectively used to ensure the correct scaffolding is built into lessons to ensure all children achieve.

In order to be ‘secondary ready’ children need to meet the required end of Key Stage 2 expectations.

In order to be “Key Stage 2 ready”, children need to meet the end of Key Stage 1 expectations.

In order to be “Key Stage 1 ready”, children need to meet the ELG at the end of EYFS.

We use the National Curriculum objectives to assess outcomes for children at the end of each curriculum year.

Our assessment and reporting system includes:

• Ongoing formative assessment by the class teacher throughout each lesson, through questioning, observation and dialogue.
• Children knowing what they are being asked to learn and more importantly, why.
• Success Criteria are discussed and agreed with or formulated by the children during each lesson, work is then assessed against the success criteria.
• Three way feedback occurs between pupil, peer and teacher with clearly identified next steps – this can be written or verbal feedback.
• Regular pupils’ work scrutiny.

Tracking progress over time

We will use our own tracking system to track pupils’ progress over time, against age-related expectations in each subject area.  This allows formative judgements to be made on specific Objectives that then feed into a summative judgement in Best Fit.

• Beginning
• Working Towards
• Expected (Mastering, showing that age-related objectives have been achieved and the child is working at a deeper level of understanding and application)
• Working at depth…  Pupils will definitely:  Apply understanding in more complex situations. Use facts, information or procedures to respond to, solve and answer complex problems. Apply own knowledge in an alternative and unusual context.  In relation to Blooms’ Taxonomy:  Analysis / Analysing – infer and separate  Synthesis / Creating – combine, compose, create, design.  In addition, pupil may show elements of / begin to:  Apply understanding creatively in more intricate situations. Use facts, information or procedures to respond to, solve and answer complex and unfamiliar problems. Apply own knowledge into alternative and unique contexts.  In relation to Blooms’ Taxonomy:  Evaluation and Evaluating – compare, judge

More able children

Rather than moving onto the next year’s curriculum these children will work on ‘gaining greater depth of understanding’ through the application of skills in different contexts – they will be deepening their learning.

The depth and application of a child’s learning is an important marker of their achievement and progress.

Reporting to Parents

We will continue to report to parents via Parents’ Evenings twice a year and a yearly report at the end of the academic year.   Discussions will be based on the assessment system in place for each age group.

School continues to operate an Open Door Policy, so if you have any questions, please feel free to contact school.

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