End of Key Stage 1 Assessments How do we assess our year 2 children? Thomas Russell Infants’ School ‘Our children blossom through nurture & challenge’

Introduction New, revised curriculum with much higher expectations for each year group National curriculum levels were abolished and age specific expectations were introduced Over the year we gather information about your child’s learning and understanding

How we assess now Ongoing written work in books, reading and comprehension and maths work that we do everyday. We use our school assessment grids for reading, writing, maths and SPAG. The children achieve stars when we have evidence that they have achieved that statement. They need 3 stars to say that they are secure with a statement.

How we will make the end of KS1 assessment judgement? Teacher assessment judgement. The SATs tests. Interim teacher assessment framework. You will be told if your child is working towards the national standard, working at or working in greater depth for reading, writing (including spelling, punctuation and grammar - SPAG) and maths.

KS1 Tests Very different to end of Key Stage 2 tests which are very formal KS1 tests do not have to be taken on a specific day We try to play down the tests to the children – we refer to them as a ‘special booklet’ They are marked in school and are used purely to support teacher assessments.

The Reading Tests Paper 1 – Contains a selection of texts totalling between 400 and 700 words with questions about the text. Paper 2 – Contains a reading booklet of a selection of passages totalling 800 to 1100 words. Children will write their answers to questions about the passage in a separate booklet. Each paper is worth 50% of the marks and should take approximately 30 minutes to complete, although the children are not being assessed at working at speed so will not be strictly timed. The texts will cover a range of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Questions are designed to assess the comprehension and understanding of a child’s reading. Some questions are multiple choice or selected response, others require short answers and some require an extended response or explanation.

The Maths Tests The children have already completed the maths tests because we were informed that we had been chosen as one of the schools who would administer the tests early in order to enable the government to set their benchmarks for other schools. These tests have therefore been completed and sent back. Paper 1 is for arithmetic and is worth 25 marks. It covers calculation methods for all operations. Paper 2 covers problem solving, reasoning and mathematical fluency and is worth 35 marks. Pupils will still require calculation skills and questions will be varied including multiple choice, matching, true/false, completing a chart or table or drawing a shape. Some questions will also require children to show or explain their working out.

How will a judgement be given from the test? A system called ‘scaled scores’ will be used. It is planned that 100 will always represent the ‘national standard’. Each pupil’s raw test score will therefore be converted into a score on the scale, either at, above or below 100. The scale will have a lower end point somewhere below 100 and an upper end point above 100. A child who achieves the ‘national standard’ (a score of 100) will be judged to have demonstrated sufficient knowledge in the areas assessed by the tests.

How you can help You already have been!! – Reading at home regularly – Maths and English homework – Coming to parent consultations – Targets from parent consultations – Spellings given out at parent consultations – By not worrying the children about the forthcoming assessments.