Bay House School & Sixth Form

Bay House School & Sixth Form

Mathematics Assessment Strategy - Draft

This strategy is intended to create consistency in assessment within the Mathematics department, which will have an impact on pupils / students, whilst reducing teacher workload. Assessment has the following purposes:

1. Students act on feedback and consequently make progress over time

2. It informs future planning and teaching

3. It informs the school’s reporting process

KS3 Mastery Cohorts (Y7-8 for school year 2016/17, Y7-9 from 2017/18)

Pre and post module tests are used to inform both the pupil and the teacher of how well the topic has been mastered. The results from these tests are used to complete the department mastery spreadsheets, indicating a RAG for each objective for each pupil.

Occasional formal assessments (no more than termly) to underpin the above will be implemented to assess skills in ways that the pre and post module tests do not fully cover. The results of these will also inform the mastery spreadsheets.

The mastery spreadsheets will be the source of information for teachers to complete the mastery data entry on the intranet. Teacher’s markbooks will also be of use at parents’ evenings and to inform the comment written in the mastery data entry system.

KS3 Non-mastery Cohort (Year 9 in 2016/17)

Formal termly assessments will be implemented to assess skills. Teachers should provide written or verbal feedback to pupils about their weaknesses after these assessments. Often the question level data from these assessments will be required on a department spreadsheet. Every assessment will be levelled so that each pupil is given a sublevel as an indicator of their current working level. These sublevels will inform whole school data entry for progress checks and reports.

KS4 (Y 10 in 2016/17, Y10-11 from 2017/18):

Unit Tests will be done after each unit and results will be recorded on a departmental spreadsheet to inform both pupil and teacher of progress. The averages from recent tests will be used to produce a suggested current grade (1c-9a) for each pupil at each progress check during Y10.

At the end of Y10, in November of Y11, and in February of Y11, pupils will sit formal assessments, using papers in the style of GCSE 9-1 exams. Question level data will be required from these assessments to inform class teaching and interventions. We will produce suggested exam grades (1c-9a) for each pupil when these exams are marked. These will inform progress checks during Y11.

KS4 (Y11 in 2016/17 only)

Unit Tests are available for teachers to use as they see fit, but no centralised data will be collected for the results.

At the end of Y10, in November of Y11, and in February of Y11, pupils will sit formal assessments, using papers in the style of GCSE 9-1 exams. Question level data will be required from these assessments to inform class teaching and interventions. We will produce suggested exam grades (1c-9a) for each pupil when these exams are marked. These will inform progress checks during Y11.

Classwork and home learning across KS3 & 4

Classwork and home learning will usually be assessed using self or peer assessment. Pupils can be asked to RAG or numerically mark their work, and/or list targets for improvement. Some indication of the standard of the work should be recorded by the teacher in a physical or electronic markbook, so that the teacher can see progress over time.

Teacher feedback (written or verbal) will be given where appropriate to help with pupils’ specific difficulties (rather than difficulties shared by many in the class, which are likely to be dealt with by whole class teaching). Routine generic marking of exercise books by teachers is usually not a good use of time. Instead teachers may choose to close mark one piece of work, or have a look through the book and write a comment to indicate to the pupil that their effort is appreciated, or note items in books as they walk around the classroom during a lesson.

Time spent giving feedback should help:

·  Identify common errors.

·  Motivate students to correct / improve.

·  Re-teach parts of the lesson.

·  Inform future teaching.

If you provide written feedback you should give pupils time to act on that feedback in the next lesson.

Home learning should be set at a frequency in line with the whole school policy, and work should be recorded on SIMS so that parents can view it. Where a class is shared between teachers, those teachers should come to an arrangement between them to split the setting of home learning between them, usually in a similar ratio to the ratio of lessons that they are each timetabled with the class. Some home learning (no more than half of that which is set) could be online using mymaths or a similar system.

Supporting Notes:

•  To address common errors a coding system can be used to avoid writing the same comment in all books.

•  Build time in for pupils/students to respond to marking

•  Strategies to encourage dialogue: www… and ebi… ; different coloured boxes; pink box; RAG; Faces and effort level.

•  Please read this document, from NCETM and endorsed by Ofsted

"https://www.ncetm.org.uk/public/files/40764571/Secondary+Marking+Guidance+(October+2016).pdf"