Assessment at Uptown School

A Vision for Student Learning at Uptown

Every Child Challenged

Every Child Successful

Every Child Supported

Assessment at Uptown Primary

•  Uptown is an IB World School

•  Assessment is in the line with the philosophy, principles and requirements of the IB for the PYP and MYP programmes

•  Assessment principles and practices at Uptown are embedded in current educational practice

Assessment Principles

Principle 1: assessment should first and foremost inform and improve student Learning Principle 2: Assessment procedures help teachers discover what students can and cannot do – forming the basis for planning and differentiated learning Principle 3: Every assessment should be selected with a specific purpose in mind

Assessment Principles

Principle 4: assessment should be linked to accountability Principle 5: assessment should allow teachers and parents to identify a student’s progress and attainment in a comparative context Principle 6: assessment should be used to track individual progress and growth over time Principle 7: assessments should be reliable, valid, and efficient, preserving as much time as is possible for teaching and learning

The primary purpose of assessment is not to

rate, rank and sort students, but to provide meaningful feedback that informs decisions

Assessment Practices in Effective Schools

•  Continuous (Formative) classroom Assessment for Learning (part of the learning process)

•  Common Summative Assessments (developed by collaborative teacher teams to assess the learning targets for a specific time period / area of study)

•  Annual external standardised testing undertaken to compare performance and achievement in a larger context than a single school

Assessment of Learning & Assessment for Learning

Two key forms of assessment employed

•  Assessment of Learning is summative and descriptive, supporting programme review and planning – it comes at the beginning or end of a period of learning – it follows a cycle

•  Assessment for Learning is formative and ongoing, supporting adjustment to teaching and learning as the student is learning – it follows a cycle

Summative Assessment Cycle for Planning and Review

Long-Term (Unit) Learning Goals

Assessment – what do they already ‘know’?

Analysis and review

Planning, teaching & differentiation

Assessment – what do they know now?

Assessment for Learning

•  Ongoing ‘daily’ activities in the classroom that form part of the learning and teaching process

•  Undertaken by teachers and by their students to provide information to be used as feedback to the student and to modify teaching and learning activities

•  Provides continuous descriptive rather than evaluative feedback

•  Acknowledges the critical importance of teachers and students working as a team

Formative Assessment; Assessment for Learning Cycle

Short-term Learning Goals

Assessment

Feedback to and with student – goal setting

Differentiation

Assessment

Feedback to and with student – goal setting

External Standardised Assessment at Uptown

•  ACER, International Benchmark Tests (IBT) •  Annual Assessment in English, Mathematics and

Science - Grades 3 to 6 (November) •  Over 50,000 students in international and national

schools – growing year by year •  Norm referenced against students of a similar age;

norm referenced against TIMSS world assessment in Science and Mathematics

•  Excellent diagnostic feedback at individual, class and grade level

•  Disaggregated data i.e. boys / girls / native speakers / second language learners etc.

•  Long-term tracking of individual students

Principles of Assessments in the Classroom

•  Using representative examples of students’ work or performance to provide information learning

•  Collecting evidence of students’ understanding and thinking

•  Documenting learning processes of groups and individuals

•  Engaging students in reflecting on their learning •  Students assessing work produced by themselves

and others •  Developing clear rubrics •  Identifying exemplar student work

Assessment Tools

•  Rubrics: An established set of criteria for rating in all areas - developed by students as well as teachers

•  Exemplars: Samples of students’ work that serve as concrete standards against which other samples are judged

•  Checklists: Lists of information, data, attributes or elements that should be present

•  Anecdotal records: Brief written notes based on observations of students that can be analysed at a later stage

•  Continuums: visual representations of developmental stages of learning -show a progression of achievement or identify where a student is in a process

Subject Specific Assessments

•  Ongoing, anecdotal records of observations, quizzes, paper tests, performance tasks, written products, projects, end of unit projects etc.

•  Early concepts about print, running records, miscue-analysis, conferencing, reading logs and journals. Writing prompts, written responses and rubric-based writing assessments

•  Basic mathematics concepts assessment, discrete skills assessments (times tables, number bonds etc.) common end of unit mathematics assessments

Reporting to Parents

•  Parent Conferences

•  Student Led Conferences

•  Interim Reports

•  Written reports

•  Portfolios