Why do we Assess?

• To allow our children to demonstrate what they know, what they understand and what can do in their work.
• To help our children recognise the standards to aim for, and to understand what they need to do next to improve their work.
• To recognise and celebrate a wide range of achievements.
• To allow teachers to plan work that accurately reflects the needs of each child.
• To provide regular information for parents that enables them to support their child’s learning.
• To provide the headteacher and governors with information that allows them to make judgements about the effectiveness of the school.
• To provide parents with regular feedback about how their children are progressing.

Reporting to Parents

We have a range of strategies that keep parents fully informed of their child’s progress in school.

We encourage parents to contact the school if they have concerns about any aspect of their child’s learning.

Home to school contact is also an essential part of feedback to parents. Each student has a home to school Link Book which contains a space for class teachers and parents to make comments about students on a daily basis.

Transitional assessments recognise and record a student’s achievement at a time of transition, usually the end of a school year and/or Key Stage. Our transitional assessment looks at external measures of progress (KS2 SATs, public examinations such as GCSEs and A-Levels) and internal measures of progress within the school’s curriculum which are reported on annually.

During the academic year we hold the following:

• In the Autumn Term we have one written report and one parents evening (online)
• In the Spring Term we will provide one snapshot report
• In the Summer Term we have one written report and one parents evening (online)

Feedback to Students

We believe that feedback to students is very important, as it tells them how well they have done, and what they need to do next in order to improve their work. We deliver this in a number of ways:

• A consistent marking policy
• Verbal feedback
• Written feedback
• Peer review
• Student response to feedback at the start of each lesson – verbally or using purple feedback pens.