Assessment and Pupil Progress
Pupil Assessment
At Springhallow School every pupil is valued as an individual and we celebrate all steps of progress including success in behaviour, independence and communication. Pupils are encouraged to achieve their full potential, to develop a desire to learn and to participate fully in school and where possible, the wider community. Pupils at Springhallow School follow a broad and balanced topic based curriculum centred around the new National Curriculum subjects and learning intentions.
Learning intentions are differentiated to meet each individual pupil’s learning needs at their specific stage within their development; it is therefore not an age related approach. It is a pupil centred approach.
Children with autism develop at different rates and do not always make progress in the way that we may usually expect, i.e. with a steadily increasing progress profile. They often learn unexpected things on par with their chronological age, while they may take longer to learn other seemingly ‘easy’ concepts or skills.
To ensure that we capture and meet each individual pupil’s learning potential, Springhallow School has adopted a new and very pupil centred approach to assessment. From September 2016, we are using a new assessment system called ‘ONWARDS and UPWARDS’.
This assessment tool plots progress from each pupil’s starting point or Baseline, and measures their progress against targeted “I can” statements. These statements are directly informed by the new National Curriculum and have been broken down into smaller steps by our staff, to ensure that they are appropriate, attainable and help pupils to make next steps. Records of captured steps of progress are kept electronically and will help to track and celebrate the many steps of achievements that our pupils make. It will furthermore inform teachers and individual pupils of the next steps on their learning journey.
As a school we feel that this system will allow us to be more robust in capturing small steps of progress based on developmental approach. In order to capture all achievements we use different descriptors.
The statements below are evident in pupils’ work, assessment books or in Annual Review Reports. These statements are also used in our ‘Onwards and Upwards’ tool to ensure consistency across the school.
Not Yet Developed
Not Yet Developed – Pupils Not Yet Ready.
Emerging
Emerging – Pupils is ready to learn.
Pupil explored and experienced learning with positive responses and verbal and non-verbal support.
Developing
Developing – Getting there…
Pupil achieved Learning intention with non-verbal support/prompts only.
Secured
Secured – Got it here.
Pupil can independently and spontaneously implement learnt skill within a specific context/ setting – without any support.
Generalised
Generalised – Got it here, there and everywhere.
Pupil can independently implement a learnt skill within a wide range of contexts and settings – without any support.
In response to recent changes that include a new National Curriculum and the removal of a national system of levels, we have also developed a new attainment progression based on a developmental approach.
Springhallow Attainment Progression
Year 1 emerging – Step 7
Year 1 expected – Step 8
Year 2 emerging – Step 9
Year 2 expected – Step 10
Year 3 emerging – Step 11
Year 3 expected – Step 12
Year 4 emerging – Step 13
Year 4 expected – Step 14
Year 4 emerging – Step 15
Year 5 expected – Step 16
Year 6 emerging – Step 17
Year 6 expected – Step 18
