New Assessment Protocols at Mellis
Assessment without Levels: A Brief Overview of the School's Approach
A New Approach
Levels, the system used to report attainment and progress ('achievement') was abolished in 2014 in concert with the introduction of the New Primary Curriculum. (Please click here to see Long Term Planning for each subject.)
Mellis felt that the divergence between the expectations of the New Curriculum and the old Levels would grow progressively mis-matched over time. The School therefore decided to implement its own system as a matter of urgency.
Reporting Attainment
Based on the fact that expectations of children's achievement is now explicitly Year group based, the school now reports attainment as follows.
A = Significantly Above Expectations
B= Slightly Above Expectations
C= Meets Expectations.
D = Slightly Below Expectations
E = Significantlly Below Expectations
Effort is also reported in the same manner.
Reporting Progress.
Year on Year:
Movement from (say) a C to a C will constitute expected progress i.e. the child has kept pace with expectations. Movement from one grade to another will constitute better than expected progress or less than expected progress depending on the direction of travel.
Term to Term:
For the purposes of monitoring progress from half-term to half-term or term to term, children will be assessed against objectives taught thus far, and a final assessment made at the end of the year when all Year group objectives have been covered.
The school has since invested heavily in various assessment materials to support assessment in the New Curriculum. The Headmaster is a trained LA Writing moderator at Year 6, and it is intended that the Deputy Head/English Coordinator will undertake the same training in 2018/19. Mrs Wendy Wyncol (Year 2 Teacher) is also a LA trained moderator for Year 2.
External Monitoring
Mellis School's work on its new Assessment Protocols has been monitored by both the Governors and the Local Authority's Standards and Excellence Officer.
Following on from this, the School was asked to present its work to the recent Head's and Chairs' Briefing organised by the LA with very positive feedback.
'Many thanks for the excellent presentation that you shared at the HT/governor briefing last night.
It was both interesting and informative and the feedback from other schools on the evaluation forms was extremely positive.' Gill Larkin, LA Learning and Improvement Adviser
The School has also presented its work to the Commission for Assessing without Levels.
Next steps: The School will be:
- carrying out internal and external moderation to ensure consistency across the School
- researchiing ways in which to integrate age standardised scoring
- evaluating the new BaseLine Assessment being trialled in September 2018
- Further developing the use of 'Target Tracker', the School's pupil tracking sustem
- Liaising with our Suffolk Family of Schools to develop yearly exemplar writing files to assist with consistent assessment and moderation of writing as Interim Frameworks are developed and changed.
Addtional infomation
Please find below a document list detailing how progress and achievement is reported to parents at Mellis Primary.
1) An example of the Mid-Year Report Card distributed to parents prior to Parents' Evenings
2) End of Year Reports for all Year Groups
Please note that packs of Year group expectations are available on request from the school office.
A formal presentation on the New Assessment Protocols was made to parents in January 2015. Please click here for an analysis of the survey carried out at the time.
The School's Assessment Protocols will be the subject of updates in the School's regular Assessment Evenings held for each Year Group in September.
Example Report Formats
Please find below the most recent report formats issued to parents. Please note that the report format for Reception uses the same header sheets with teacher commentary, but with data and assessments generated from the School's reception tracking system.