Please see Claremont’s summer provisional end-of-year data headlines with comparisons to previous years and national average. This is open to change as national data is finalised.

Click on the link for our 2022-2023 data summary.

Please visit https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov... for the school's performance table. This will be automatically updated as national data changes.

A parents' guide to assessments

Fundamental Principles of Assessment and Reporting
Assessment and reporting should:

• be meaningful, manageable and motivating.
• be strategic and predictive in nature, allowing for the school to project outcomes at either the end of the year or key stage.
• provide the school with information to evaluate progress, both in the short term and long term.
• be accurate and robust whilst offering all pupils an opportunity to show what they know and understand.
• provide teachers with operational data to identify gaps in pupils’ learning to inform pupil targets and next steps in teaching and learning, especially in terms of what they need to do in order to deepen their understanding and mastery of the primary curriculum allow for the continuity of results and processes across year groups.

Assessing within the National Curriculum
The programmes of study within the National Curriculum set out expectations at the end of each key stage, and all maintained schools in England are free to develop a curriculum relevant to their pupils that teaches this content.

The Department for Education (DfE) states that the curriculum must include an assessment system which enables schools to check what pupils have learned and whether they are on track to meet expectations at the end of the key stage, and to report regularly to parents.

Statutory Testing in Years 1-6
Reception pupils are assessed during their first 6 weeks at school through the Reception Baseline Assessment. It is a short and simple check of a child’s early literacy, communication, language and maths skills when they begin school. The assessment will form the start of a new measure of how schools are helping their pupils to progress between Reception and Year 6.

Year 1 pupils are assessed in their synthetic phonic knowledge at the end of the year through the Phonics Screening Check in June.

Year 4 pupils are assessed in their knowledge of the multiplication facts up to 12x12 through the Multiplication Tables Check in June. This is a computer-based test in which children must be able to recall a fact within 6 seconds. Please follow this link to read about the Multiplication Tables Check.

Pupils in Years 2 and 6 are required to take statutory assessments known as the SATs. These take place throughout May for Year 2 and in during a set week of May for Year 6. The tests are administered by the school, with children assessed in reading, GPS and mathematics, alongside an assessment of writing. All schools have external moderation from the Local Authority for Years 2 and 6 to verify final judgements. At Claremont, teachers meet regularly to moderate assessments and agree judgements, sharing their understanding both internally, and externally with teachers within the Tunbridge Wells Collaboration Trust to quality assure our judgements.

Reception Pupils are assessed Goals at the end of the year for the EYFS Profile Assessments. A child’s Early Years Foundation Stage Profile will be shared with parents through the Summer Report. This will detail each child’s progress and whether they have met or are continuing to work towards their early learning goals (ELGs). There are 17 ELGs a child is expected to achieve by the end of the EYFS.

The current Year 2 cohort did not sit the Phonics Screener in June 2021 due to the pandemic. As a result, these pupils are required to undertake the Phonics Screener before the end of Year 2. A baseline was carried out in September and areas for improvement and support identified and the delayed Phonics Screener will take place before the end of Term 2. Any pupil who does not meet the threshold at that point will be supported through interventions and will undertake a second Phonics Screener at the end of Year 2.

Internal Assessments at Claremont
Department for Education guidance allows for schools to use their own robust and rigorous assessment system. At Claremont, we continually monitor pupils’ progress throughout their time here. These internal assessments are vital for teachers to ensure the progress of pupils and identify individuals’ strengths and weaknesses. It also enables us to provide parents with clear information about their child's achievement and progress.

At various points in the year, teachers will assess all children, and make a judgement as to how they are learning and progressing in relation to the Age Related Expectations, and what they are ‘on track’ to achieve at the end of the year. In Autumn, Spring and Summer, teachers will use a triangulation of assessment strategies to review pupil achievement against the age-related objectives for the school year. This will help them to reach an overall judgement for each individual pupil, based on independent learning and tasks they have evidenced. This process allows teachers to identify personalised targets to support each child’s needs and secure progression; this then provides the basis for reporting to parents. It should be noted that these assessments are kept very low-key to minimise pressure and stress.

Upon returning to school in September 2020, the children were baselined in a variety of ways using tests, quizzes and in-class assessments. The purpose of this was to identify the gaps in pupil knowledge (in order for teachers to plan an
effective recovery curriculum for the core subjects) and to ascertain which pupils require additional support. This 'Recovery' approach will continue to the end of the 2021-22 academic year and it will be replaced with similar model from 2022-23 onwards.

A parents' guide to reports

Reporting to parents and consultations
Parents received reports three times a year, which align with our assessment timetable. The Autumn and Spring reports are sent home on the first day of Terms 3 and 5. The Summer report is sent home towards the end of Term 6.

The timings of the Autumn and Spring consultations differ based on year groups.

• The consultations for Years 2 and 6 take place at the beginning of Terms 2 and 4 (with a data slip detailing assessments in Reading, Writing, Maths and GPS).
• The Autumn and Spring reports for all year groups will be sent home on the first day of Terms 3 and 5.
• The consultations for Years R, 1, 3, 4 and 5 will take place in the first week of Terms 3 and 5.

The reports will inform parents of their child’s ‘Attainment’, 'Progress' and ‘Attitude towards Learning’. in the areas of Writing, Reading, GPS (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling) and Maths. In Year 1, teachers will share information about phonics instead of GPS.

With regards to the theme subjects, we will share information for History in the Autumn for Discover, Geography in the Spring for Explore, and both Art and Design Technology in the Summer for Create.

The summer report will expand further on the information contained within the Autumn and Spring reports, and will include information on both Science and PE, as well as Mastery assessments for Music, Computing, French and RE (Religious Education).

Interpreting the progress colours
We are using these colours to indicate following levels of progress:

• Purple - progress beyond what is expected
• Green - the expected amount of progress
• Yellow - not quite the expected amount of progress
• Amber - small steps of progress

Reporting to Reception parents
The progress of children in the EYFS is individually tracked using the Development Matters age bands of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. By the end of their Reception year in school, it is expected that they achieve the ‘Early Learning Goals’ (ELG), which the EYFS Curriculum defines. Children are assessed in seventeen areas of learning through careful observation of what they can do; how they interact with others; how they explain what they know; and what they write down.

A learning journey document is kept of their development through the year and this record is part of the ongoing assessment. The report will indicate whether the child has or has not achieved each ELG and whether they have reached a Good Level of Development (GLD) (means they have achieved at least the expected level for the ELGs in the prime areas of learning and the specific areas of mathematics and literacy).

Reporting of Statutory Assessments
All statutory assessment information (for Years 1, 2, 4 and 6) is reported to parents at the same time but separately from the internal assessments.
At the end of the Reception year, the EYFS Profile for each child is completed, as is statutorily required. This details everything that your child has learned and is able to do in all seventeen areas of learning in the Early Years. It is reported to parents in July, and states where each child is in relation to Age-Related Expectations, as defined in the ELGs.

For further information please see the Assessment and Reporting policy

A parents' guide to marking and feedback

Principles behind Marking and Feedback:
There are three underlying principles for all marking and feedback.

• Marking should be: meaningful to pupils; manageable for both pupils and teachers; and motivating for pupils.
• Marking is based on a pupil’s progress towards the achieving the Learning Objective (WALT) and Success Criteria (WILF).
• Marking follows the Shirley Clarke method of ‘Tickled Pink’ and ‘Green for Growth’, with Pupil Response in purple.
• Children are given the opportunity to review and modify their work to improve it on a regular basis, both before and after marking, both individually and with their peers (where deemed appropriate).
• The majority of marking is undertaken by the class teacher, to ensure it is formative; work marked by a supply teacher or other adults should be initialled; cover supervisors provide feedback to children during the lesson they are covering; it may be oral or written (written if appropriate during lesson time, e.g. if working 1:1 or with a group). Stamps, to acknowledge overall achievement against WALT and WILF criteria, may be used within cover supervisor working hours in order to effectively support succession planning.
• Comments on marked work are positive, supportive and constructive and in the correct colour.

For further information, please see the Marking and Feedback policy.

Glossary
Assessment: A judgement made about a child's understanding
Attainment: The final assessment made of a child's learning up to that point
ELG: Early Learning Goal, assessed at the end of Reception
EYFS: Early Years Foundation Stage, which is the pre-school to Reception curriculum
Expected: Working in line with age related expectation (either within the year or at the end of the year/key stage)
Greater Depth: Working at a higher level; comparable with exceeding expectations
GPS: Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling and we often refer to it as SPaG.
Progress: The difference from the previous assessment to the current assessment
SATs: Formal tests issued by the Government at set points in the National Curriculum (Standard Assessment Tests)
Year group expectations: The key objectives a child should have securely acquired by the end of the year
WAGOLL: What A Good One Looks Like
WALT: We Are Learning To (our learning objective)
WILF: What I'm Looking For (success criteria)