Assessment Principles

At Robert Bloomfield Academy assessment procedures are in place to:

• ensure students of all abilities make progress and experience success year on year, regardless of their starting point
• complement and support the key aims of the National Curriculum and focuses on developing the knowledge and skills needed for success
• it is easy to understand for staff, parents & students
• be supported by teacher professional judgements that are consistent and reliable
• maintain high expectations in all areas of the curriculum
• offer support on how to enhance student understanding and motivation whilst providing next steps

 Purpose of Assessment

To identify strengths and areas for improvement and to inform next steps	To acknowledge, record and report students' overall performance and achievement at a point in time
To use assessment information to make specific improvements in learning	To inform curriculum planning and to provide information for monitoring and accountability

Our Approach

We have taken a three-pronged approach to assessment, noting a clear hierarchy, in that the foundation of all assessment is with individual teachers in their classrooms, then departments who will assess groups of students before whole year groups are assessed at a school level. 

 At the Classroom/Diagnostic Level, teachers use assessment to check students’ understanding of the main curriculum elements. This might be through questions, short quizzes or through an observation of work as it progresses. They then respond appropriately through their teaching, with an expectation that the information is used not only for identifying misconceptions in students’ knowledge, skills and depth of understanding, but also to inform and improve on future curriculum design.

 At the Department Level, each curriculum area has set out how they will establish the overall progress a student is making using a broad range of assessment materials. These judgements are shared with parents at three points during the year and are used to frame conversations at subject consultation evenings. 

 At the Whole School Level, students will sit GL standardised tests in Maths and English across their 4 year journey, in order to assess student attainment and progress against national norms across the 4 years. We also assess pastoral development through our PASS Survey. Bespoke intervention, including year 7 catch up, may be offered to students, with the impact of a withdrawal from other subjects being risk assessed ahead of any intervention beginning. 

Frequency & Types of Assessment

We utilise the nationally benchmarked GL Assessments at entry and exit points in core subjects to demonstrate the 4 year journey our students make alongside KS2 SATs.

Whilst there are clear obstacles in assessing across two Key Stages (neither of which students complete the full cycle with us), our focus is very much on offering consistency for all of our stakeholders. With this in mind, our assessment model is based on Age Related Expectations, Progress and Attitude to Learning.

Three Progress Reports are published each year which contain an attainment grade for each subject as well as information about a student’s learning attributes including their effort, behaviour and homework. The progress which a student is making is monitored against their baseline level. 

In all lessons, students are continually assessed informally by teachers. This could be through observation, conversation, questioning etc. All these help the teacher to form a judgement on what the student knows and what they need to do to improve.

In most subjects, students work through a module or a topic, which may last for a set period of time e.g. a week, half term, full term. At the end of these modules or topics students will take some form of summative assessment (E.g. test/written assessment), which will give a clear picture of what the student has learned and understood in the project they have just completed. 

 

If you have any further questions relating to our curriculum, please email us here.