Assessment Information

Our Assessment Philosophy and Core Principles

At Fleetville Junior School, consistent and robust assessment is driven by distinct formative (ongoing, daily feedback) and summative (end-of-unit or term tests) approaches. Considering the different stages of development and levels of independence of our children, teachers use our assessment toolkit to ensure optimal levels of progress. This approach aims to maximise teacher time and ensure all our assessment and responsive feedback is motivating, manageable, and meaningful to all children.

Our assessment processes are designed to:

Enable teachers to plan effective lessons, adapt plans, identify gaps in pupils' knowledge and skills, and re-teach where problems persist.
Ensure teachers thoroughly understand what is expected to be mastered by pupils at any given stage of their education, and assess progress towards doing so in a meaningful way.
Create a classroom culture of high expectations.
Identify pupils in need of extra support and targeted intervention.
Move pupil understanding of content from shallow to deep, differentiating between short-term recall and true, long-term learning (learning being a permanent change in long-term memory).
Inform and improve future curriculum design while helping school leaders evaluate year-group progress over time.

Our Curriculum is the Progression Model

Although test papers can tell us whether a pupil has improved in a specific area of their learning, a raw score alone cannot provide specific guidance on how to get better day-to-day. Designed in line with National Curriculum expectations and the specific needs of our pupils, it is our clearly defined and carefully sequenced school curriculum that describes the journey pupils go on to get better in any given subject.

In short, our curriculum models the progress that we expect the pupils will make. Progress at Fleetville means pupils knowing more, remembering more, and being able to do more. We make judgements of progress based on how much of the taught curriculum the children have learned and how securely they can apply that learning independently.

As a result, it becomes reasonable to expect that most of our pupils meet and/or exceed these expectations because they are directly connected to what has been taught. If any pupil struggles to meet our expectations, our assessment tools will make it clear what the child does not know and steps can immediately be taken to fill the gap(s).

Formative Assessment

Throughout the academic year, teachers use ongoing formative assessment to check what children know and remember day by day. The primary goal of this daily practice is to allow teachers to adapt their teaching in the moment and adjust upcoming lessons to meet the immediate learning needs of the pupils.

To achieve this, we provide teachers with an assessment toolkit because different strategies are required at different points of teaching and for different purposes. Teachers use their professional judgment to select the right tool for the right moment; a single lesson will showcase some of these strategies, but will rarely use them all.

Live Marking & Verbal Feedback: Reviewing work alongside pupils during independent tasks to provide immediate corrections, praise and scaffolding. Teachers frequently use live classroom visualisers for mid-lesson pit stops to address common misconceptions together.
Low-Stakes Checks: Using mini-whiteboards and targeted 'hinge questions' during teaching to scan the room instantly and check understanding before moving on.
Retrieval & Revisit Practice: Start-of-lesson retrieval quizzes and exit tickets that assess long-term memory retention and inform the next day's teaching.
Oracy & Vocabulary: Using spoken prompts during class discussions to encourage children to rephrase answers with greater technical precision and full-sentence syntax.

Summative Checkpoints

While daily feedback supports teaching, we also use summative checkpoints termly to evaluate year group progress, review the effectiveness of our planning, and identify pupils who require targeted support.

Well-being: Summative checks are intentionally spread throughout the academic year to avoid over-testing, ensure a manageable pace, and safeguard pupil well-being and confidence.
Core Subjects (Reading, Writing, Maths): We combine termly assessments with ongoing classroom picture-building - such as reading fluency checks, classroom application, and problem-solving - to ensure a complete picture of a child’s capability.
Writing Assessment: Teachers build a real-time picture of a child's writing capability by assessing their everyday application of core skills across different text types. To ensure we evaluate independent capability, children complete unguided writing tasks at key points across the year, alongside one national comparative moderation.
Statutory National Assessments: In line with national requirements, our Year 4 pupils complete the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) in the summer term, and Year 6 pupils complete the National Curriculum Tests (SATs) in May.

Foundation Subjects

In foundation subjects (such as History, Geography, Science, and the Arts), assessment focuses on whether children understand the "big picture" concepts that form the unique identity of each discipline - such as chronology in History, or climate and settlement in Geography.

To evaluate whether learning has transferred into long-term memory, teachers use creative showcase opportunities like double-page spreads, end-of-unit quizzes, and knowledge 'brain dumps'.

Furthermore, senior leaders and subject leaders conduct regular Pupil Book Studies. These are evaluative conversations held with a cross-section of children a half-term after a topic has been taught. Listening to children confidently discuss their previous work helps us evaluate long-term retention and continually refine our curriculum.

Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs (SEN)

For pupils on our Special Educational Needs (SEN) register who may be working outside age-related expectations, traditional assessment frameworks do not always capture their individual progress.

Targeted Frameworks: We use specialised progress trackers (such as CAPPS) to monitor small-step progress across core academic domains as well as Personal, Social, Health, and Emotional (PSHE) development.
Live SEN Support Plans: SEN Support Plans are live, working documents created and continually reviewed in partnership with parents. Targets directly inform daily lesson planning, task adaptation, and targeted 6-week intervention blocks to ensure every child is supported to succeed.