Assessment Of Foundation Subjects In Ks1

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Hi,

I am a foundation stage teacher in my 2nd year but my head has asked that I now track progress from reception to end of KS1. And to be honest I have no idea!

 

My school are very hot on using APPs for literacy and numeracy and coming from foundation stage, it seems great, the perfect step on my the profile. However, with the profile I am used to tracking all areas of learning but the APP only covers lit and num. My school seems to have poor/almost non existance assessment system for the foundation subjects and I am not really sure what or where the assessment scales should be taken from for KS1 - can anyone help? I realise this is probably quite a basic thing to ask but I haven't ever taught KS1.

 

In reception I have sticky labels with observations of children's learning, is this still appropriate for kS1, it seems to me that incident learning and things the children say are missed in their current assessment. What would be the best way to collate this learning? In an individual learning story like reception? Or is this too much work with everything else?

 

Sorry for the all questions!

 

Thanks in advance!

KST

[AnonyMouse_79]

Gosh!

My first question is why is this up to you? Have you taken on the role of assessment coordinator?

If so, then you should have some CPD available to you from your LA.

If not, then again why is this up to you?

 

What assessments do your KS1 staff currently use, and how do they make their end of KS1 Teacher Assessment?

 

We track progress against APP and enter our assessment levels onto a grid that HT and AssessCO have devised every half term and to be honest this is in itself a lot of work. There will be new statutory assessment requirements in 2011( I think!) which will introduce assessment of the other subjects bt I do think that you need to trust teacher judgement for some of this plus the new curriculum will no doubt change the balance.

 

I think there are lots of other questions that you need to be asking in school before you spend alot of time on this yourself.

[AnonyMouse_4544]

I think you would have a mutiny on your hands if you expect KS1 staff to complete learning journeys for every child judging by reactions on teacher's and union forum

 

"Sue Horner of the QCA – the body that created APP –was one of the guest speakers.

 

Despite being in favour she acknowledged real concerns and said she’d met with all of the teacher unions to discuss it. Her statement that "assessment must not just be to feed the data machine" was met by hollow laughter in many sections of the room.

 

She did however repeat the statements that

 

1. APP is voluntary not statutory – nobody has to do it just because QCA has developed it.

2. Teachers should be consulted before APP introduced.

3. If it’s got huge workload then it’s not being used properly.

[Guest tinkerbell]

Hi KST

You sound to have been given a huge task here.Why should you have to track where the children will be at the end of KS1.?

 

Don't forget the foundation curriculum is just that.The National curriculum is what yr1 and yr2 are doing.

 

How big is your school? I would be asking how each teacher does their assessments in the foundation subjects at a staff meeting if the school has not got a formalised system.How doe the co-ordinators 'track' what is going on in the foundation subjects?Find out what is going on and work as a team,perhaps doing 1 subject together....

 

Ofsted have been doing 2 day subject inspections in my area west yorkshire and they have concentrated on RE and PSHCE this has made all schools panic about how teachers are recording assessments in foundation subjects....more paper work!!

 

 

Tinkerbell

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thanks for your speedy replies as always!

 

The position hasn't been formalised yet, but after recent ofsted inspection, one of the main areas that came up was a lack of tracking in KS1 so my head has asked if I would take on the role. I haven't had a chance to discuss with members of staff yet but totally agree that working as a team is the best solution! the current assessment and tracking is very good for literacy and numeracy, I was just thinking about the foundation subjects more because it seems like they are assessed a lot less. But as you have all mentioned it would be too much to do for all subjects in that detail!

[Guest]

A lot of it actually depends on how your school teaches in KS1, but in general you should be able to come up with a series of statements from the National Curriculum about the skills and knowledge children should be attaining in the foundation subjects by the end of key stage one. This would allow teachers to assess whether or not the children had aquired that skill in whatever way they wished. With a bit of tweaking you could all probably come up with something for each foundation stage subject where teachers can highlight different aspects as the children achieve them, a bit like when filling in APP or profiles. I would definitely use the curriculum as a base though and reduce the number of statements for each subject as much as possible, don't be tempted to cover every single thing as it would make a lot of work for the class teachers and there would probably be a rebellion, as well as making it difficult for you to track!

 

Ultimately a lot of it would have to be teacher judgement about what level the children were at, and like with APP you could perhaps ask them to keep evidence just for certain children (a high, middle, low and SEN child perhaps?)

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thank you Katriana, very useful advise! Yes I think you totally right about the way KS1 is taught. And I think that is the key thing we want to address, as I feel very strongly towards moving towards a topic based approach with a foundation stage ethos. It is a bit difficult for me to suggest when I'm not teaching there, but hope to move to KS1 in the future.

 

Thanks again. KST

[AnonyMouse_4544]

I think perhaps you need to look at the new primary curriculum areas (due to be published this month) which better match EYFS as there will be 6 areas instead of all the subjects and much more skilled based so fewer things to assess.

[AnonyMouse_3307]

The national curriculum still covers the levels of attainment for all the foundation subjects. All the level descriptors are still there for everyone to refer to and until the NC is rewritten re Rose review, as I understand it they are the statutory programmes of study and relevant level descriptors!!

 

http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-1...ects/index.aspx

 

PS to avoid confusion for non KS1 folks the foundation subjects are all those not designated core subjects - Art, Hist, Geog, DT, PE, Music etc. They all have a statutory programme of study and relevant level descriptors for assessment purposes The Foundation Stage Curriculum is a different thing altogether.

 

Cx

[Guest]

Thank you Katriana, very useful advise! Yes I think you totally right about the way KS1 is taught. And I think that is the key thing we want to address, as I feel very strongly towards moving towards a topic based approach with a foundation stage ethos. It is a bit difficult for me to suggest when I'm not teaching there, but hope to move to KS1 in the future.

 

Thanks again. KST

 

 

This brings up a good point. A new curriculum is due to be published so it might be worth holding off in putting mountains of work into setting up an assessment system that might need to be changed dramatically once the goalposts are moved for the new curriculum. On the other hand if you have some sort of basic outline without too much detail it should be easy to alter and change once the new curriculum is published. Just something to think about so you don't do a huge pile of work which might ultimately prove useless!

[AnonyMouse_4544]

Our head calls it "Future Proofing" what we do. We follow the statutory parts of the current curriculum but also look at what will replace it and see where the two match.