Assessment

Target Tracker is the system that we use at Furze to track the progress & attainment of our children. Teachers use this continuously and the information gathered form the basis for our Pupil Progress meetings every term.

The school reports to parents three times a year, twice at parents’ consultations where you will receive your child's targets based on the Target Tracker statements and once in your child’s annual report at the end of the year. Parents often find it useful to view all the statements and you can find them and answers to frequently asked questions below.

The National Curriculum has been written to give Age Related Expectations (ARE) for the end of each year. As children travel from Nursery to Year 2 in our school, they are tracked against the Age Related Expectations. At Furze we use Target Tracker to support our tracking, this provides us with numbered bands and steps to track children.

What are Bands?

Each year group to be a ‘Band’ therefore Nursery = N, Reception = R, Year 1 = Band 1, Year 2 = Band 2.

What are Steps?

Each year band has been broken down into six steps within the year group:

- beginning (b)

- beginning + (b+)

- working within (w)

- working within + (w+)

- secure (s)

- secure + (s+)

Each pupil begins a year group as a ‘b’ and progress through the levels as the year evolves.

What does each step actually mean?

The three broader sections may be thought of in these terms;

- B/B+ Beginning – This means they have begun the current curriculum and are accessing it as expected. There may be minimal elements of the previous band still to gain complete confidence in.

- W/W+ Working Within – Pupil learning is fully focussed on the criteria for the band. This is a teacher best fit decision but could be informed by statement assessments between around 40% and 70% achieved.

- S /S+ Secure – Pupil is showing confidence in all of the criteria for the band. There may be some elements that still need to be achieved, but the broad expectations for the band have been met.

Lower attaining pupils may be working at a band outside of their current year.

For children to be working at age related expectation, they would need to reach the secure (s) step at the end of the appropriate year, although during the transition period w+ is also acceptable.

Why have we got ‘b’ and ‘b+’?

Each band is broken into two parts to enable progress within the band to be evident. For example, a pupil may be assessed as Band 2 Beginning (2b) in the Autumn term in Year 2. The next time the teacher records their assessment they may not feel that the pupil has progressed to Working Within, but the pupil has made progress. An assessment of Beginning + will allow that progress to be shown.

Where should my child be ideally?

This will obviously depend on the pupil’s ability level and how hard they work!

However, the expected standard at the end of each academic year will be ‘s+’ – ‘secure’.

BUT we will be tracking progress as well and each pupil will ideally make 6 ‘steps’ of progress from one year to the next.

So Helen who was ‘1s+’ (Year 1 and ‘secure’) at the end of Y1, should be ‘2s+’ by the end of Year 2.

What is a mastery curriculum?

The advice from the Government is that pupils who have gained a secure understanding of the Y1 programme of study, for example, should not be automatically moved on to the next year’s programme.

Instead they should be provided with extension work to deepen and consolidate their understanding of the concepts and skills already grasped.

The current curriculum is challenging so this extension work will be covered by a small cohort of each year group. Secure +, pupils have attained a more thorough and wide ranging grasp of the content and concepts.

What should the age expected ideal attainment and progress look like?

For a pupil to attain thorough coverage of the year band, children should reach the secure (or s+) step by the end of the appropriate year

How can you help?

Be aware of your expectations – year group expectations can be found on this page.

Be aware that the curriculum is about breadth, depth and mastery too. Not moving to the next band.

You can support school by working with your child at home.