Achievement and Progress

Assessment is the process by which students, parents/carers and teachers gain an insight into the learning of each individual. It is integral to teaching and learning.  

Assessment provides the basis for:

• celebrating achievement

• planning for future learning

• reporting for a range of purposes e.g. to parents, governors, the local authority and for statutory assessment

Foreland Fields School began to introduce new curriculum pathways in September 2019. These pathways have been designed to meet the very different needs of our students and as such will require different approaches to assessment.

Previous approaches to assessment have presumed that our students will make linear progress – that they will move on from one skill or concept to a more challenging or advanced skill or concept in a linear fashion. We recognise that assessment approaches that capture lateral progress, improvements in pupils’ depth of understanding or in the range of contexts to which they can apply new skills and concepts will paint a fuller picture of the progress that our students make.

In order to measure progress across the whole curriculum for each student, we will use a “basket of indicators”. Each Curriculum Pathway has its own set of indicators.

EYFS

• Progress towards individual Personal Learning Intentions

• Progress towards therapy goals

• Progress towards Early Learning Goals (Development matters)
  
  

Explorers’ Pathway

• Progress towards Personal Learning Intentions using the MAPP assessment tool

• Progress towards therapy goals

• Progress towards MOVE goals

• Welsh Routes for Learning Levels

• Engagement Model

• End of Year Explorers’ Level
  
  

Discoverer’s Pathway

• Progress towards Personal Learning Intentions using the MAPP assessment tool

• Progress towards therapy goals

• End of Year Pre-Key Stage 2 Standard in reading, writing and maths

• Accreditation (where appropriate)
  
  

Pioneer’s Pathway

• Progress towards EHCP outcomes and targets

• Progress towards therapy goals

• End of Year Pioneer Level

• Accreditation (where appropriate)
  
  

We recognise that our students all have very different needs and that they learn in different ways and at different rates. We will therefore implement a personalised approach to target setting and end of year expectations and as such there will be no standard measure of expected progress, nor will we have any comparative data. Students following the Explorers’ and Discoverers’ Pathways will have 4-6 Personal Learning Intentions per term. These will be agreed between staff, families and outside agencies, such as Speech and Language. Progress made towards these will be measured using the MAPP assessment tool. This measures progress on a scale of 1-10 using 4 aspects:

• Independence

• Fluency

• Maintenance

• Generalisation

We will continue to have high expectations of each individual student and progress will be monitored in-year at student progress meetings.

The analysis of assessment information from the above “basket of indicators” will enable teachers and school leaders to demonstrate the impact of the school’s activity over time.

Evidence for Learning

Under the 2019 OFSTED framework, we are no longer required to produce quantitative progress data. Instead, we are required to provide real evidence of the progress that our students have made.

Evidence for learning is an app, which enables us to capture photographic, video and observational evidence and link it to a range of frameworks – such as the student’s Personal Learning Intentions – or therapy goals. It allows teachers to capture and make judgments about lateral progress, as well as linear progress. Evidence stored on the app can be used to create Learning Journals, which “tell the story” of progress of an individual student.