Assessment
Assessment at The English School During the course of each academic year, students will be involved in a variety of formal and informal assessments. The purpose of assessment at The English School is:
- To inform future planning and teaching in order to make the teaching and learning appropriate to the needs of the students.
- To identify students needing support or extension, and provide the resources to meet their individual needs.
- To enable the progress of individuals to be monitored.
- To enable us to monitor levels of achievement in the core subjects, against the average national levels of achievement in England.
Formal Assessments
Twice a year all students from Year 2 to Year 8 will take a standardised reading test. Once a year all students from Year 2 to 8 will take a standardised, diagnostic maths test. At the end of each year, children in Years 2 to 8 will take the SATs (Standardised Assessment Tasks) as sat by students of the same age in England. In Year 6 these are statutory and are sent to the UK for marking. In the remaining year groups these are non-statutory assessments which are marked in-house.The use of SATs at The English School is just one part of our assessment process, which enables us to check progress and allows us to moderate our leveling against UK benchmarks. The results from these assessments rarely hold any surprises for our teachers, but generally reinforce the accuracy of the levels that they have already assigned to a student.
It should be emphasised that our assessment process does not involve a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ approach. We also aim to make assessments as unobtrusive as possible for the children, by making them part of their daily work where feasible.
Foundation Stage
In each year of the Foundation Stage, teachers continuously assess student’s achievements in relation to the EYFS objectives and regularly update their individual Foundation Stage profiles.Informal Assessments
Teachers are continually involved in a variety of informal assessments. These may take the form of observations, asking questions, marking of daily work, self assessment, short end of topic and key objective tests, analysing specific written assignments, etc. These go on throughout the year and enable students to reach their full learning potential.Understanding the National Curriculum Levels
The term ‘level’ is used to compare your child’s ability against national, standardised levels of achievement in England. The spread of marks required to achieve each level is wide, so each level has been subdivided into three sections, with ‘a’ being the highest, then ‘b’ and ‘c’ being the lowest of the three divisions. On average, a student is expected to progress by two subsections each academic year, with the average child reaching a level 2 by the end of Key Stage 1 (Year 2) and level 4 by the end of Key Stage 2 (Year 6). A more detailed explanation of level expectations is available for you to download.Sharing Information with Parents
The school has an open door policy, so should you have any concerns about your child and their progress, you are welcome to make an appointment, in the first instance, to discuss this directly with the class teacher/tutor or the relevant subject specialist teacher. If the issue remains unresolved, an appointment should be made to discuss this further with the Director of Studies.At the start of each academic year parents are invited to attend year group Curriculum Information Evenings. At this meeting the teachers have the opportunity to explain to parents what they should expect over the coming year and how parent can assist in their child’s learning. Parents also have the opportunity to ask questions with regards to the curriculum and school procedures.
Twice yearly, in Term 1 and 2, there are Parent Meetings, where you will have the opportunity to meet individually with the teacher for an update on your child’s progress. Twice yearly, at the end of Term 1 and 3, you will receive a formal report on your child’s progress.