Any teachers about? Can you tell me about assessment data

[SholaMola]

If there are any primary teachers about please can you tell me the following:

How are children assessed?
Are there government targets for how much progress a child should make in a year?
What happens to schools if these targets are not met?
Where does this data go? Lea? Department of education?
How is this data QAd? Is it by an external body or by a colleague?
If a child starts a new year with falsely inflated levels, how does that impact on the next teacher?

How are children assessed?
There are many different methods of assessment schools will often use a variety of ways.

Are there government targets for how much progress a child should make in a year?

No

What happens to schools if these targets are not met?
Nothing

Where does this data go? Lea? Department of education?
Data is reported for Y2 and Y6 only this goes to the LA and DfE other data is for internal use only.

How is this data QAd? Is it by an external body or by a colleague?
In Y6 tests are externally marked

If a child starts a new year with falsely inflated levels, how does that impact on the next teacher?
It depends upon the school.

Can you give us some context to your questions, we may be abel to answer them better.

Overall, each school now can choose the method they use to assess.

The school should be monitoring the kids and picking up where there are gaps and where the overall data shows weaknesses. (so more about reading is an issue in KS1 than individual children)

How are children assessed?
In so many ways. Depends on year group. Teachers know their children very well.
Are there government targets for how much progress a child should make in a year?
Generally 2 sublevels in most year groups.
What happens to schools if these targets are not met? One child- nothing. Lots of children- OFSTED
Where does this data go? Lea? Department of education? yes
How is this data QAd? Is it by an external body or by a colleague?
Teachers assess with each other in staff meetings. Teachers also attend meetings with other teachers from other schools. Also assessors randomly come in at times.
If a child starts a new year with falsely inflated levels, how does that impact on the next teacher? It’s a massive pain in the arse.

These questions sound pointed as if OP wants to make a complaint. OP, what’s your beef?

I'd rather not say here but happy to message noblegiraffe

Sub levels no longer exist and schools all use different assessment methods

I’m not primary so wouldn’t have as detailed knowledge (I’m secondary) but as far as I know, anything that isn’t KS1 or KS2 SATs, or the Y1 phonics check are just internal school arrangements, and as such, will be a bit of a bodge job as they are not externally validated.
Different schools will do it in different ways now that national curriculum levels have been scrapped.

Thank you all.

Of those that are primary teachers, can I Pm you with specific details? I don't want to share too much here. I'm a parent and have a potential complaint but need to see if I have a point or not.

I'm an ex primary teacher, but a primary school governor, so we do a lot of data crunching. PM me, I'll tell you honestly if I know the answer.

Generally internal data is for school use only. Y2 and Y6 + phonics check goes to government

Thank you

Primary assessment is moderated within schools and between them. Teachers in my school (I'm a primary teacher) submit tracking data regularly to ensure children are making progress in reading, writing and Maths. We assess each child in our class against a long list of statements for cire subjects and fewer statements for foundation subjects. We have meetings with the senior team every few weeks to discuss who is at risk of not reaching age related expectations, intervention groups, strategies to use for different groups within the main lesson etc. Then we tweak our planning to take into account the needs of our groups. I don't consider this to be a bodged job- assessment is a big ongoing job and takes a lot of thought and time.

Also, performance related pay means that your class data and progress impacts upon pay progression.

We assess each child in our class against a long list of statements

Like APP? I thought this had been binned? Also, do age related expectations officially exist for each year group?

Submitting regular tracking data to attempt to measure progress is a waste of time, tbh. No wonder primary teachers have such a heavy workload.

Totally agree Noble I would also say linking Performance Management to progress is a disaster waiting to happen as it encourages inflation of results.

OFSTEDs National Director recently commented that data tracking every six weeks was a "waste of time" (his words)

Yes it is early time consuming. Unfortunately the senior team want cold hard data.

Assessment is a nightmare-and I say that as assessment co-ordinator at my school!
For year 6 it is pretty straightforward-we have a test and that's that! We can report teacher assessments but all anyone is really interested in is the test scores.

For year 2, we have a similar situation but not quite. We use the test scores as part of the assessment process but together with teacher judgement. the two shouldn't be ( hopefully) too far apart but there are cases where children underperform in tests so we can take that into account when coming to a decision.

As for any other year group, whilst it's not quite as bad as sticking down any old grade, it's not too far off! Each school will have their own system. Some use test papers devised by commercial companies-but they have no more real idea than we do! Some use an artificially created set of "objectives" for each year group which are ticked off when a teacher is "certain" they have achieved them. Then someone, somewhere decides what this means in terms of a level. It might be a computer programme that does this , a published assessment scheme or an assessment co-ordinator who decides you need 12 ticks for beginning, 18 for developing and 37 for exceeding. But one teachers view on "certain" might be different to another's. Do you need to see it happen once, twice or six times! Do they have to be able to do it consistently, when reminded or totally independently. Can you count it if the objective is included in the success criteria, what if they can do it in a lesson but not in a test ( or crazily-vice versa!) What counts as "ambitious vocabulary" , how reasoned does a discussion need to be to count, how many words are "some" All this becomes subjective. Teachers moderate and re-moderate in an effort to be as consistent and correct as possible but one school might moderate to a different level to another, one teacher might have a different viewpoint/experience to another. So certainly between years 2 and 6, levels are a guide to progression rather than an accurate mathematical certainty!

Levels still exist (for now) in Wales and sublevels are still evident in our online tracking system. 2 sublevels expected for all pupils.

Cold hard meaningless data 🤔

I agree it is meaningless but we still have to do it. The job would be too much fun otherwise.

Thankfully not all schools work that way

So, the teachers pay can depend on the progress of the child?

So surely in some cases the figures can be massaged to advantage the teacher?

I might as well give a bit more information. Dd has been diagnosed with dyslexia and being 2-3 years behind in literacy and maths. We are being told this in year 6 which we are shocked about.

The issue is the assessment data for year 4 places her above average which is totally contradicted by the EP report a year later at the end of year 5 when she's 2-3 years behind.
When I queried it with the teacher from year 5, she said she disagreed with the year 4 teacher who had basically assessed her as above average. The year 5 teacher said she was at least 4 sub sets less than that but had to put her as 1 sub set less as it would 'mess up the school data'. My gripe is that had that assessment data been correct then her issues would have been picked up earlier. Her year 5 teacher knew something was wrong but it was almost impossible to get SENCO on board as her data for year 4 appeared OK. This meant a huge delay and a miserable year 5. Had she not had dyslexia then this would not have been an issue.

"So surely in some cases the figures can be massaged to advantage the teacher?" That's the stupidity of performance related pay based on progress or results. We briefly had a teacher who came from such a toxic system whose class made unbelievable progress making him look amazing but left the school having to explain to parents why the next teacher was assessing them much lower than he had. Of course he'd left by that point!

So, the teachers pay can depend on the progress of the child?
No. It's much less simplistic than that.

www.atl.org.uk/advice-and-resources/pay-and-pensions/pay-progression