Assessment at Hampton College Primary

Assessment involves gathering, reflecting on and evaluating evidence of children’s learning to enable staff to check on learners' progress and support further learning. Assessment is an integral part of learning and teaching. It helps to provide a picture of a child's or young person's progress and achievements and to identify next steps in learning.

• Assessment in the Early Years

  Assessment in our Early Years classes is mainly based on practitioner observations and their professional judgements of children’s achievements.  Observations will be conducted throughout the year by all members of our EYFS team and these observations will form our children’s Special Books, which record their Learning Journey throughout their reception year.
   

  Following a child’s first six weeks at school, our teachers will use their observations to make a formal assessment against our Baseline Assessment, which is provided by Early Excellence.  This Baseline Assessment will enable our teaching team to evaluate our children’s achievements as they start school.  We can then tailor our provision to enable children to develop their learning, knowledge, skills and understanding as appropriate. 
   

  At the end of the year, our teachers will again use their observations to make judgements in each of the 17 areas of learning within the EYFS Profile.  For each area of learning the teachers will determine whether a child is Emerging, Expected or Exceeding.  Expected means that children are working at an age-expected level of development within the area of learning.  Children identified as Emerging are working towards this age-expected level and children identified as Exceeding are working beyond the age-expected level.

• End of Key Stage Assessments (Year 2)

  Throughout the year, our Year 2 teaching team will be assessing children against the National Curriculum for Year 2, making observations, looking at the work the children complete during lessons and gathering evidence to determine how children are attaining in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 2.  This end of year teacher judgement will be shared with parents through your child’s end of year report and will show parents whether your child is working:

  • at age related expectations;
  • towards age-related expectations or
  • above age-related expectations.

  Updates regarding how your child is attaining will also be shared at our autumn and spring term parents’ consultations in November and March.

   

  Y2 Standard Attainment Tests (SATs)

  In previous years, children in Year 2 have taken written tests in reading and mathematics as part of their Year 2 standard attainment tests (SATs).  The results from these tests, taken in May each year, helped to inform their teacher’s end of year assessment of the child in these subjects.

  From September 2023, the government have removed these statutory SATs from the primary assessment calendar, making them optional for schools to administer.  As a school, we have reviewed our arrangements for assessment in Year 2 and may use some SATs style questions or extracts from past papers to help to inform our teacher assessments, we will also complete the optional SATs tests or PiXL assessments in the summer term.

  We will continue to use PiXL (Partners in Excellence) assessments; tests designed to check children’s knowledge and understanding in Year 2, as these assessments enable diagnostic evaluation of gaps in children’s learning and are supported by therapies and interventions which can support children in closing their gaps in learning. 

   

  Year 2 Phonics Screening Check

  Any children who scored 31 or less in their Year 1 phonics screening check in June are classed as ‘having not met the end of year expectation’.  These children will continue to be taught discrete phonics sessions in Year 2 and will re-take the phonics screening check in June 2026. We will continue our phonics teaching using the Bridge to Spelling programme.

  For more information, please click on the following link – Phonics screening check: information for parents to read the leaflet produced by the Standards & Testing Agency (STA) regarding last year’s check.

• How do our teachers assess children?

  As the Government have now removed the process of assessing children against National Curriculum levels, each school must use its own system of assessment to assess children’s attainment and progress and report this to parents.  As a school we are currently developing our approaches to assessment further and are hoping to share some more of this with our children and parents later in the year.

   

  At Hampton College Primary we are using the STAT Sheffield systems to assess children in reading, writing, SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) and mathematics.  This involves the teachers using set criteria for each of the four areas of learning to assess what children can do.  It also enables our teachers to identify next steps for each child and also explore next steps for groups of children or the whole class too.  This means that the assessment directly feeds into teachers’ planning and teaching.

   

  For further information about your child’s attainment and progress, please remember to come along to our parents’ consultation evenings in November and March and discuss your child’s end of year report with them when this is sent home towards the end of the year.  Please don’t hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any questions or concerns about their achievements in school.