Assessment
At Polam Hall School we believe that Assessment is an integral part of the curriculum. It forms the bedrock of our lesson planning process and allows teachers to ensure that each lesson builds successfully on the one before. Generally speaking, assessment at our school falls into four main categories:
Formative
Smaller tasks which are completed in regular lessons or homework. Teachers use these to inform their planning and to provide regular feedback to learners. This also includes regular knowledge tests (such as spelling tests, times table tests as well as content recall) which have been proven to help pupils commit their learning to long term memory.
Summative
Larger tasks which mark the end of a topic or unit of study. These tasks are designed to allow teachers to assess where students are currently working at and are used to inform the grades which are communicated to parents via the reporting process. Increasingly we are moving towards a model whereby these tests include prior knowledge to better prepare students for the demands of final examinations.
Validation
These assessments are conducted through an external organisation. Primarily we use GL Assessments. We use a variety of online tests and Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) to validate teacher assessments and to help inform the target setting process.
Assessment processes in subject areas
Each of our subjects, in both the Secondary and Junior school, use the Polam Assessment Pyramid to plan their assessment processes. This tool allows subjects to think carefully about the different types of assessment they use, how these tasks are marked and recorded and, most importantly, how they move the learning on. This planning helps to blend the use of assessment as part of classroom practice into planned and formalised assessed pieces of work and exams. A blank example of the pyramid is available below. In addition to this, each subject area has identified the most important aspects of their curriculum, to ensure that these are the elements that are included in the assessed tasks, making sure that the most important knowledge is tested and revisited regularly. Finally, each subject area has planned out their own process for linking the assessment tasks completed to the predictions and grades they report to parents.
External Examinations
These are the external assessments which the school must ensure pupils sit. These include:
Year 1 – Phonics Check
Year 4 – Times table check
Year 6 - KS2 SATS
Year 11 – GCSEs and other Vocational Awards (See the individual subject pages)
