Reporting and Assessment

Assessment is an essential part of any high-quality curriculum and through the information gained plays a crucial role in raising standards of learning and achievement.

It should be used for:

• Diagnostic purposes, i.e., to determine the knowledge and skills a student already has, to help identify strengths and areas for development, to give appropriate guidance and to support effective interventions;
• Formative purposes (assessment for learning) i.e., to provide information to aid with the planning of the next steps of a student’s learning;
• Summative purposes (assessment of learning) i.e., when it summarises the progress and attainment of a student and shows what is known, understood, and can be done;
• Evaluative purposes i.e., when it provides information which shows the success of lesson plans, schemes of work, resource allocation and continuing professional development.

We see assessment as a means of identifying:

• Baseline academic starting point on entry to the Beacon of Light School
• Improvement on prior attainment;
• Whether all classes/individuals perform to their potential;
• Comparative performance between teachers, subjects, and other schools;
• How to analyse, review and respond to learners needs

Uses of Assessment

Assessment determines what teachers and learners do next, as well as supplying ways to measure whole school performance. To achieve this, teachers must, by their department’s assessment policy and having considered prior attainment, use assessment to:

• Predict potential and indicate future success. Staff will be held accountable for the accuracy of any predicted outcomes e.g., GCSE predicted results, centre-assessed grades, and mock examination grading, where appropriate;
• Recognise and track progress, under-achievement, and high achievement to inform intervention;
• Ensure the effective transfer of information to departmental colleagues and commissioning schools/academies including centre assessed grades;
• Provide information to parents/carers and other outside agencies;
• Complete any form of report writing.

As a school we recognise that assessment, recording, and reporting are central to successful learning and teaching. We believe the core purpose of assessment is to move students on in their learning and to improve standards, not merely to measure them. The quality of assessment has a significant impact on attitudes to learning and on attainment by challenging students to work hard and by encouraging teachers to focus on how to improve the learning of individual students. It us used as a way to:

• Review learners’ performance;
• Lead to enhanced learning, attainment and hence progress;
• Provide meaningful feedback and find areas for improvement;
• Measure progress over time;
• Enable a review of teaching methods and learning aims;
• Involve formal and informal methods;
• Include dialogue (which may not be recorded)

Assessment Objectives

Assessment should:

• Enable an informed judgement to be made about a student’s knowledge, understanding, skills and attitude;
• Be a continuous process which is integral to the teaching and learning programme and should be built into the curriculum and used to inform future planning;
• Incorporate a wide range of assessment techniques to be used in different contexts and for different purposes; Including baseline assessments, pre and post topic assessments, mock examinations, and practical assessments.
• Look to raise standards by allowing staff to review and improve their teaching and learning schemes of work;
• Provide opportunities for effective differentiation to take place;
• Be a process in which students are involved so that they are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning and in evaluating their own progress;
• Provide feedback that recognises achievement and not just attainment, to increase a student’s confidence and motivation;
• Support students in finding strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to set future learning goals and aid them in decision-making;

Assessment practice will be monitored half termly during quality assurance meetings with all staff and assessment procedures and subject action plans changed, if necessary, as a result.

Teachers provide regular feedback to students about their work, giving indications of how they can make improvements to allow progress to be made.

• Allow students the opportunity to reflect on the advice given and plan appropriate time into their medium-term lesson plans that allow students to revisit topics that have been found as a weakness.
• Record, as appropriate, information relating to a range of assessments electronically.

Each class teacher must hold and keep up to date a subject specific tracker that indicates student performance per topic and a cumulative overview.

Robust and current assessment data must be shared by all teaching staff, (moderated by subject leads) for each student on a half termly basis as part of quality assurance meetings with SLT.

Data shared must be based on both formative and summative assessment.

Class teachers should ensure all students have a cumulative assessment file of evidence to ensure grades submitted can be validated.

At the Beacon of Light School, we see assessment as an integral part of teaching and learning, and it is inextricably linked to our curriculum – both academic and pastoral.

We use four broad overarching forms of assessment:

• baseline diagnostic assessment
• day-to-day in-school formative assessment
• in-school summative assessment
• nationally standardised summative assessment.

Baseline diagnostic assessment

Effective baseline diagnostic assessment enables staff to assess student starting points, both academically and pastorally, and to use this information to identify support to ensure future progress can be made. Baseline data must be taken within one week of a student starting a placement at the Beacon of Light School and used in combination alongside KS2 data and commissioning school data to ensure students are given appropriate class setting and intervention.  Data must be shared with Beacon of Light School prior to a placement start date being confirmed with a commissioning school. A baseline assessment will be completed in all three CORE subjects by all students when arriving at the BOL School to assess current attainment and support need, considered alongside data provided by commissioning school.

In-school formative assessment

Effective in-school formative assessment enables teachers to identify how students are performing on a continuing basis and to use this information to provide appropriate support or extension, evaluate teaching and plan future lessons

Students measure their knowledge and understanding against learning objectives outlined in the “Learn more, Do more, Be more” elements of the lesson, and identify areas in which they need to improve

Parents/Carers are then able to gain a broad picture of where their child’s strengths and weaknesses lie, and what they need to do to improve.

Methods include:

• Marking and feedback
• Questioning
• Self-Assessment
• Peer Assessment

In-school formative assessment will be used alongside the Skills Ladders used in English, Maths, Science & ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to assess knowledge, skills and understanding. At the start of each topic an assessment will be completed by all students to ascertain their current level of knowledge about this area of study to identify gaps and misconceptions.  Assessments will be written in the style of GCSE questions taken from recent past papers, assessed using the exam board mark scheme, to ensure a standardised approach. Staged levels of skills criteria will support the development of knowledge appropriate to each student’s current understanding with a view to closing the learning gap.  Students take a proactive role in the implementation of the Skills Ladder and can clearly see their progression towards learning outcomes in a visual, logical manner.

Quality assurance of formative assessment will be completed during half termly quality assurance meetings with teaching staff.

In-school summative assessment

Effective in-school summative assessment enables:

• School leaders to monitor the performance of student cohorts, identify where interventions may be required, and work with teachers to ensure students are supported to achieve sufficient progress and attainment.
• Teachers to evaluate learning at the end of a unit or period and the impact of their own teaching.
• Students to understand how well they have learned and understood a topic or course of work taught over a period. It should be used to provide feedback on how they can improve.
• Parents/Carers to stay informed about the achievement, progress, and wider outcomes of their child across a period.

Methods include:

• End of year exams
• Start/End of topic exams (pre/post assessment)

In-school summative assessment will take place at the end of each topic of study at the end of half-term. The assessment will be used in conjunction with the pre-topic assessment as a comparison to record progress.

Assessments will be written in the style of GCSE questions taken from recent past papers, assessed using the exam board mark scheme, to ensure a standardised approach.  External standardisation will be completed by all three CORE subjects to ensure as a school Beacon of Light is seeking out the best practice. Quality assurance of summative assessment will be completed during half termly quality assurance meetings with teaching staff.

Nationally standardised summative assessment

Nationally standardised summative assessment enables:

• School leaders to monitor the performance of student cohorts, identify where interventions may be required, and work with teachers to ensure students are supported to achieve sufficient progress and attainment.
• Teachers to understand national expectations and assess their own performance in the broader national context.
• Students and parents to understand how students are performing in comparison to students nationally.

Nationally standardised summative assessments take the form of GCSEs, Functional Skills and vocational qualifications which are taken throughout Y9-11 and at the end of Key Stage 4.

Recording of Assessment Data and the use of Feedback

• Each teacher is to record all assessment data electronically in their class tracker and share with curriculum lead per half term. (The management and updating of this tracker are the responsibility of the Curriculum Leader, monitored half termly during quality assurance meetings)
• The input of class data to both the subject data tracker and whole school data tracker should adhere to the whole school planning and assessment calendar for that academic year.
• It is expected that a minimum of two pieces of “progress assessment” work for all students will be carried out per half term and recorded centrally by the class teacher – one at the start of the half term, the other at the end.
• Appropriate thought needs to have gone into these assessments, mark schemes and grade boundaries to ensure the robustness of the predictions being made because of these assessments.
• Progress assessments are to be marked against GCSE points scores wherever possible, along with detailed feedback from the class teacher which offers areas for improvement.
• It is the responsibility of the class teacher to ensure that enough time is set aside to allow students to be able to reflect on the comments given and show that progress has been made in terms of the areas of weakness which were identified in the assessment. Students’ class book/assessment folders should demonstrate that this reflection period has taken place and that individual progress has been made with regards to areas identified as needing improvement.

Moderation is intended to:

• Raise performance;
• Monitor learner and staff performance;
• Ensure quality of treatment of all learners;
• Clarify expectations;
• Ensure the highest possible quality of practice with regards to both teaching and assessing.

Curriculum Leaders are responsible for this process. It is part of their role both to coordinate and to oversee moderation procedures within their area. This includes:

• Ensuring that there are consistent standards for assessing learners’ work;
• Setting these standards against fixed criteria;
• Keeping portfolios of exemplar work for reference purposes when making judgements.

Senior staff are then responsible for making sure that checks are in place to ensure that work of a similar standard is graded equally and fairly across the whole school.

Data is reported half-termly and shared with commissioners and parents/carers via a written report at the end of each term. The report is shared with parents/carers in a personalised home visit (dependent on Covid 19 procedures) or via the post at the end of each term. Commissioners receive their reports by post each term. Parents/carers receive phone calls home every Friday to discuss weekly progress and are encouraged to discuss any concerns arising from the termly student reports which are received via post.