ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING

Assessment

Broadly, across Fife primary schools two forms of assessment are used to support your child’s development:

• Summative assessment- which focuses on measuring current performance in terms of how successful the learner has been measured against national benchmarks, and
• formative assessment which gathers information about pupils’ learning which is then used to help plan next steps in learning. Both types of assessment help teachers improve their teaching and the support they give to their pupils.

Summative assessment takes the form of standardised classroom based tests which measure how well your child is performing for their age and stage. Their purpose is not to compare your child with others but to provide the school with information to ensure that your child’s learning needs are being addressed.

Formative Assessment is an integral part of your child’s day to day learning and provides a range of information to support your child in moving their learning forward. This less formal assessment takes many forms including observing children’s engagement in classroom tasks and providing individual feedback to pupils to support them in identifying their own next steps in learning.

Within our school we have embedded good practice in formative assessment in order to assist pupils to develop their capacity for learning.

Reporting

In all Fife schools teachers’ reports about each pupil’s learning play an important part in providing useful feedback about learning, for parents and carers and for other teachers and adults concerned with the young person’s learning, progress and achievements.

Effective, constructive feedback to parents should be clear, positive, specific, supportive and give an honest appraisal of pupils’ progress. Feedback will be provided for parents at parents’ meetings and in formal written reports. Formal written reports will be based on the personal learning planning and informal records that have been shared with pupils and parents regularly throughout the year.

Reports provide an overall summary of progress, achievements
and next steps in learning in line with Curriculum for Excellence.

Within our school our “Look at my Learning jotters” provide individualised samples of pupil progress in targeted areas of the curriculum. Personalisation and choice are important features within these documents. Parent feedback and celebrating success
from home is encouraged and can be recorded in this jotter.