Kingsbarns Primary School 2013-14 Information for ... - Home Page

Information for Parents/Carers Kingsbarns Primary School 2014-15ASSESSMENT AND REPORTINGAssessmentBroadly, across Fife primary schools two forms of assessment are used to support yourchild’s development:Summative assessment- which focuses on measuring current performance in terms of howsuccessful the learner has been measured against national benchmarks, and formativeassessment which gathers information about pupils’ learning which is then used to help plannext steps in learning. Both types of assessment help teachers improve their teaching and thesupport they give to their pupils.Summative assessment takes the form of standardised classroom based tests whichmeasure how well your child is performing for their age and stage. Their purpose is not tocompare your child with others but to provide the school with information to ensure that yourchild’s learning needs are being addressed.Formative Assessment is an integral part of your child’s day to day learning and provides arange of information to support your child in moving their learning forward. This less formalassessment takes many forms including observing children’s engagement in classroom tasksand providing individual feedback to pupils to support them in identifying their own next stepsin learning.Fife schools are provided with guidance from the Education Service on how pupils should beassessed to enable the whole child to be looked at over a period of time which supports eachchild's development.Fife operate a 4 lens approach taking into account:Professional judgement (Personal)Moderation (Contextual)Progress history (Longitudinal) andExternal assessments (National)The type of assessment most familiar to parents and their child will be the professionaljudgement as this is the on-going assessment which is done in class. Moderation is wherestaff discuss what the standard is for certain levels using guidance provided by the service ornationally to enable parents to be sure the levels assigned to their child is accurate.The progress history is where staff track pupil progress over a longer period of time to ensuredevelopment is taking place at the correct pace for each individual pupil. Externalassessments are used to provide standardised information which benchmarks againstnational norms. These are done as and when required for specific purposes or when requiredby the service.Within our school, we assess and monitor progress in numerous ways such as PIPS, groupassessments in class, Assessment for Excellence at Primary 3, 5 and 7, the use of thenational Assessment Resource.Children's progress is tracked regularly through our e1 system to ensure appropriateprogression is being made and to flag up any concerns we may have.Reporting13