Assessment, Feedback & Reporting - Thorpe St Andrew School

Assesment, Feedback and Reporting

Assessment Routines- Summary

Assessment Examples and Approaches

These are our expectations for all of our curriculum areas. The purpose of this procedure is to address elements of inconsistency, centralise data systems, be able to report accurately on grades, respond to and implement interventions quickly and to make sure that every curriculum area is meeting a minimum amount of assessments throughout the year.

Every child who attends TSAS will be assessed in the following formats:

Assessment Method	Frequency	How To Record?
Key knowledge test Google form or other method can be used to gather this assessment data	1 per unit/topic	On department assessment sheet
Summative assessment End of unit tests/ assessments	1 per topic	On department assessment sheet
Whole class feedback Using the department agreed WCF sheet. Teacher assessed	1. At the end of summative assessments 2. For work sampling every 6 - 8 lessons	1. Retain WCF sheets if applicable for teacher and department records 2. Green pen work will indicate this has taken place. WCF sheet can be on PPt if shared with students. A copy is not expected to be in books
Retrieval practice At the start of lessons, with chrome book or in books, self assessed	At the start of every lesson	No need to record, we use it for responsive teaching. Students should self mark using a green pen.

Detailed Guidance

Knowledge Tests

Knowledge tests are set for every unit of work to ensure that the key knowledge has been learnt by the students in class and in home learning time using the key knowledge sheets. It must be the same assessment for all students. There must be at least 10 questions.

Across all Year Groups there will be formative knowledge tests that assess knowledge acquisition to enable the teacher to respond to gaps in knowledge and misconceptions. This will embed the work in long term memory.
These short tests will be agreed across the department to assure consistency.
There must be one knowledge test per unit of work
Google forms could be used and are good practice for centralising data
Departments decide on the nature and number of the questions on the Knowledge tests but these should be based on the relevant Key Knowledge sheets and home learning for every year group
Knowledge test data will be stored centrally within departments

End of Unit Assessments/Summative Assessment

Across all year groups summative learning will be assessed and collected centrally within departments to build a picture of progress for the department and individual students. Students must receive feedback for these assessments from WCF and be given time in class to respond to that feedback in green pen.This data will provide us with at least one grade and one percentage for the assessment for every student over each year group.

The data will be stored centrally, shared with the whole team and the data team.
At KS3 this is a minimum of one full assessment/test which can be awarded a percentage per term
At KS4/5 at least 1 assessment/test per half term which can be awarded a percentage every half term and working at grade at least once per term.
Departments should work towards ensuring that the assessments are interleaved and assess content of previous units of work. This will allow interventions to be easily put in place, and will provide us with a better picture of current levels of performance and progress.
Departments should choose assessments that best suit their subject area provided the work can be awarded a numerical mark and therefore a percentage

Whole Class Feedback

Whole class feedback is our approach to feedback for assessments and learning. There is no requirement for teachers to provide students with completed WCF templates, or to tick and “mark” books. There is, however, a requirement to assess learning through work sampling and to give feedback for summative assessments.

Whole Class Feedback for Summative Assessment

We expect that whole class feedback (WCF) is given as a means of assessment and response to assessed work.
WCF will be the primary model of feedback for assessment for summative and formative assessments for example, feedback on essays, exercise books, common examination questions or exit tickets.
When WCF has been given students will respond to this by improving their work or correcting any mistakes in green pen. The student must complete a meaningful task after whole class feedback has taken place.
Whole class feedback sheets should be kept by the teacher
Students do not need to have a copy of whole class feedback in their books

Whole Class Feedback for Work Sampling

At TSAS we do not mark books or “tick and flick books”. We sample books using wholeclass feedback to address workload and make feedback more meaningful.
Books should be sampled every 6 - 8 lessons
Common features in terms of misconceptions and errors should be noted as well as work to praise. Issues with literacy or presentation should be noted as well.
Students should complete an improvement task following WCF, this should be active and improve the student, not simply copying from the board.
All WCF activities should be in green pen.

Retrieval Practice

All lessons begin with retrieval practice to find out what students can remember and where they have knowledge gaps. It is important that these low stakes activities are time limited so that they do not dominate the lesson. What is important is the mental process of retrieval to help students remember more. Retrieval should last no more than 10 mins.This can take the form of low-stakes quizzing and low-threat knowledge checks at the start of lessons. Depending on the subject, these could take the form of

A quick quiz at the back of exercise books, which ideally must not exceed 10 minutes and could be for example “write down everything you can remember about the cold war"
Multiple choice questions in a Google Form
Discursive pair work, for example, read the textbook for 5 minutes, then can you tell your partner the 10 features you read about?
Checking knowledge through discussion, for example, can they explain a concept in their own words?
Think, Pair Share activities
Students should always self mark and correct and add detail to these answers in green pen
Research shows that retrieval should be Interleaved, recalling knowledge that is recent, and from previous knowledge and topics to make sure learning is revisited.
Rosenshine suggested that the optimal success rate for fostering student achievement is about 80 percent. This percentage shows that students are learning material, but also being challenged. Carefully consider the level of challenge and ensure the questions are desirably difficult with opportunities for retrieval success.
Once teachers have a clear idea of which students have significant gaps, and where their gaps are, they can start to put the measures in place to help them catch up by adjusting the planned curriculum accordingly.

Self-Assessment and Peer Assessment

Students should be able to assess their own work in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. Much of this will be dependent on the subject areas but examples of this are

Marking knowledge tests and quizzes
Watching the teacher “live mark” and correcting own example accordingly
Comparing own work with “model answer” and assessing targets
Using the mark scheme (student speak and accessible) to assess or give targets for own work

Self-assessment when done well should not be simply about giving a mark to a piece of work but is about the student being able to give themselves feedback and targets for that piece of work or their next piece of work. All self assessment should be completed in green pen.