Curriculum Assessment

Students are set targets that we expect them to achieve based on their Key stage 2 SAT’s.

Regular low stakes testing ensure that children embed knowledge into their long-term memory.

Students are assessed by a combination of formative classroom assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments are a combination of teacher marking, observations, questioning and written assessments. This is then used to evaluate knowledge and understanding, diagnose gaps, errors and misconceptions which then informs best classroom practice.

Students are assessed summatively at 3 points in the academic year. These assessments allow students to be assessed cumulatively on what they have been taught throughout their academic career at Co-op Academy Swinton. All assessment weeks are highlighted below, with an outline of what they are to study to best prepare for the test.

Following the summative assessment window, student progress is analysed and shared through reports home. Curriculum, assessment and pastoral teams liaise to identify students who need intervention in order to increase progress. Any intervention or support is discussed with the classroom teacher or head of department.

Read on for more information on the other forms of assessment we use at Co-op Academy Swinton.

Quizzing

There are many forms of quizzing that will be used in our lessons to measure what our students know and have retained.

Giving students the resources, they can use to study from in advance, allows them to prepare. A good quiz should be designed to build confidence with every student aiming at a high success rate.

A quiz should allow all students to answer all the questions, not giving them a selection or hearing answers before they’ve been able to check their own recall. Quizzes can be done as mini paper test, asked verbally one by one or presented all at once for students to answer in their own time.

In addition to the retrieval practice itself, the most useful outcome from a quiz is that each student learns where they have gaps in their knowledge and the teacher learns what the common gaps are.

Ask a set of short factual recall questions, varying in style

Ask 5–10 questions checking for recall in a variety of styles: short answer fact check; short problem solving
Multiple choice questions; True/False; error spotting; labelling diagrams/image recognition
Recitation of quotes or definitions; short bullet-point lists.

Self Quizzing

Quizzing routinely helps to check that students have learnt the material. This is a valuable tool that provides information to the student and teacher about where the gaps exist. Using quizzes in lessons reinforces the retrieval strength of the material so it’s easier to remember later.

Self quizzing builds positive habitual behaviours, the more it is done, the more fluently students remember. Providing students with the answers allows them to compare against the teachers model and their own for accuracy. Peer checking is a useful alternative. A simple way for this to be implemented is using the look, cover, write, check method.

Knowledge Organisers

The purpose of a knowledge organiser is to provide students with accessible guidance about knowledge that they can study on their own; a secure schema with strong recall. A knowledge organiser is usually a one-page document, which presents curated, essential, organised knowledge with clarity. Knowledge is presented in a format, which facilitates retrieval practice, elaboration and organisation to develop schema.