Assessment and Target setting

In reporting attainment we now use the terminology ‘working towards’, ‘expected’ or ‘greater depth’. All children are striving to meet the expected standard by the end of their academic year. On starting the next academic year they will all be working towards standards again as they are faced with a new set of curriculum standards for their year group.

At Aston Rowant we pride ourselves on a bespoke creative curriculum which focuses on each individual child's ability. We are able to do this effectively with such small cohorts. We try not to think of our children as a 'Year group' but as individuals who each have unique strengths to be developed within our curriculum.

We assess the children's attainment and progress in many ways. Firstly, each child follows a unique and bespoke programme of study, working towards the end goals relating to their age group from the National Curriculum. Each child has their own set of personalised targets aimed at developing their reading, writing and maths ability. Lessons are then planned to best suit each child's individual ability in all areas of our curriculum. These targets are assessed against the learning objective for each task and the following lesson is planned accordingly to include either additional support or further challenge. This process continues daily so that teachers can gather a clear indication of the progress being made for each child. The progress each child makes is recorded and tracked termly. Information about this data is provided to our Governing Body.

Each term the children's progress is recorded on OTrack. The results are then reviewed by the whole staff team at half termly pupil progress meetings and also at regular Teaching and Learning meetings with Governors. This data is provided to parents during our parents' meetings and challenged by our Governing Body.

For writing, progress is assessed across all subjects and through the children's writing in different genres. During our 'Big Writing' activities, we set specific success criteria for each piece of writing aimed at extending a child's individual writing targets. These pieces of writing are used as assessment pieces and measured against the expectations for each age group. Please see our curriculum page for the writing expectations for each year group.

At the end of EYFS each child is assessed against the EYFS Framework Early Learning Goals to achieve a good level of development.

In Year 1, children will access a phonic screening test. Please see our curriculum page for more information about how we teach phonics.

At the end of Year 2 and 6, the children are currently sitting their SATs tests for Reading Maths and SPAG. These tests are marked externally with a scaled score being reported to parents. A score of 100 is the expected standard. A score of 100 or more in a high score and would indicate that the child is gaining 'deeper mastery'. There is no external writing test.

Teacher assessment results are also reported in Year 2 and 6 for Reading, Maths and Science.

The expectation for each of these sets of results is that the children have 'met the expected standard'. There is currently no facility to report 'deeper mastery' in these subjects. Teacher assessment results for writing can include a 'deeper mastery' judgement after being externally moderated.

The descriptors for the expected standard in each curriculum subject are included in the Chris Quigley document below. We use this document alongside the National Curriculum objectives to inform our teacher assessments.