Assessment

Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. As a school we ensure that ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development process.

This starts prior to the children starting at St Mark’s during the transition process in the Summer term during discussions with parents/carers and the children’s current setting, this is used to plan next steps and a smoother transition – helping them to succeed.

When the children start school, this involves practitioners observing children to understand their level of ability, interests and learning styles, and to then shape learning experiences for each child. It is important that children in the Early Years do not learn bad habits as these are much harder to correct later in life.

In September baseline assessments are conducted to include foundation skills such as pencil grip, communication and listening skills and gross motor skills. These foundation skills are then built on throughout the curriculum and supported throughout the daily provision in the classroom.

In their interactions with children, practitioners respond to their own day-to-day observations about children’s progress, and observations that parents and carers share. To this end we make systematic observations and assessments of each child’s achievements, interests and learning styles. We then use these observations and assessments to identify learning priorities and plan relevant and motivating learning experiences for each child.

At the end of Reception, each child’s level of development is assessed against the Early Learning Goals and Practitioners will indicate whether children are meeting expected levels of development:

Emerging: not yet reaching expected levels of development for age.
Expected.