HopeWell School

ASSESSMENT

At Hopewell assessments are used to help track pupils’ progress and assess their mastery of knowledge and concepts.

We believe that Assessment, Learning and Teaching are part of the same continuous process.

Aims and Principles of Assessment

To ensure that:

  • Assessment is an integral part of teaching, based on best practice, focusing on the curriculum and that it lies at the heart of promoting children’s education
  • High-quality, in-depth teaching, is supported and informed by high quality formative assessment ∙ The school ethos promotes and emphasises the opportunity for all children to succeed if taught and assessed effectively
  • There is always a clear purpose for assessing and assessment is fit for its intended purpose
  •  Assessment is used to focus on monitoring and supporting children’s progress, attainment and wider outcomes
  • Assessment provides information, which is clear, reliable and free from bias and informs teaching and learning
  • Assessment supports informative and productive conversations with pupils and parents ∙ Children take responsibility for achievements and are encouraged to reflect on their own progress, understand their strengths and identify what they need to improve
  • ∙ Assessment is inclusive of all abilities

A range of assessments are used including:

  1. Diagnostic Assessment (1)
  2. Day to Day In-School Formative Assessment
  3. In School Summative Assessment (3 students reports a year)
  4. Nationally Standardised Summative Assessment

1)Diagnostic Assessment, we use the Cambridge CEM to

  • Baseline assessments that support educational tracking for our students a
  • Diagnostic assessments that help teachers improve student outcomes.

Diagnostic assessment is a crucial tool in a teacher’s toolkit to help understand the specific areas of strength and weakness in learning, especially before teaching of a particular topic or unit begins.

By identifying our students’ individuals needs we have designed our curriculum around 3 pathways

A) Learning pathways 1 National expectation

For those pupils whose SEMH needs are effectively and so can be expected to achieve and attain in line with their peers

B) Learning pathways 2 ADJUSTED EXPECTATION

Personalised targets to each pupil’s strengths and focus areas.

C) Learning pathways 3 HIGHLY PERSONALISED PATHWAY

Each subject will be looked at individually

Example of targeted intervention for each Learning pathway

  1. Proof Reading, SEMH, Gifted and Talented
  2. Literacy, Pictorial Vocabulary, Non-Verbal, SEMH Literacy, Numeracy
  3. Literacy, Numeracy, Developmental Ability, Pictorial Vocabulary, Non-Verbal, SEMH

2)Assessment before learning can be used as a prompt for learning and to identify current knowledge or skill, as well as gaps in learning.

We believe and there is good evidence to support this as a strategy, to maximise the effectiveness of diagnostic testing. If, as teachers, we acknowledge that children can learn from a range of different stimuli and inputs – including teaching – the usefulness of diagnostic assessment to find out where children ‘are’ before we begin teaching grows. Knowing what children know and which gaps exist in their learning is an informative exercise.