Hampstead Parochial School Assessment Statement

Why do we assess?

Our assessment provides valuable information to help children, teachers, parents and school leaders to acknowledge, analyse and review achievements and progress in learning against expected standards. Our assessments inform our immediate and long term planning. Our assessment gives:

  • Children/Students – the learners – an understanding of where they are secure, what it is that they need to do to rectify any gaps and the next steps needed to extend their learning
  • Teachers the detailed knowledge of their pupils’ achievements which they can use to inform future learning, their planning and their teaching
  • Parents and carers regular reports on their child’s progress in meeting expectations and ensures that teachers, pupils and parents can work together to secure learning and raise standards for all children
  • School leaders and governors information that they can analyse and use to make decisions about future actions to improve standards, learning and teaching in the school
  • External agencies and partners (such as those schools or organisations in which a pupil will receive the next stage of his/her education, or the Council, the diocese, the DfE and Ofsted) the evidence that a school knows its pupils well and sets and maintains high standards in learning and teaching as part of the school’s public accountability to its pupils’ future

What are schools and settings statutorily required to assess?

Teachers carry out day to day assessments and checks on pupils’ understanding and progress as part of their day to day teaching. Statutory, formal assessment procedures and examinations also exist to measure attainment against national standards. Our pupils’ achievements are compared nationally with all those pupils of the same age and against schools in the local authority and in England. At Hampstead Parochial these formal assessments include:

An end of Early Years Foundation Stage assessment
  • We monitor how well pupils are achieving and the extent to which they are meeting identified expectations in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile which helps to identify those who are achieving a good level of development and those who we need to give additional help
  • Alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile we assess the children’s style of learning through the Characteristics of Effective Learning and report these to parents alongside the Early Learning Goals
The Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1
  • It assess pupils’ phonic skills as part of early reading
End of Key Stage 1

Teachers will use KS1 SATs tests to support their overall judgement of how the children have progressed.

    • English reading Paper 1: combined reading prompt and answer booklet
    • English reading Paper 2: reading booklet and reading answer booklet
    • (English grammar, punctuation and spelling Paper 1: spelling)
    • (English grammar, punctuation and spelling Paper 2: questions)
    • mathematics Paper 1: arithmetic
    • mathematics Paper 2: reasoning
End of Key Stage 2

Teachers prepare the children to sit KS2 SATs tests. These tests are externally marked.

    • English reading : reading booklet and associated answer booklet
    • English grammar, punctuation and spelling Paper 1: short answer questions
    • English grammar, punctuation and spelling Paper 2: spelling
    • mathematics Paper 1: arithmetic
    • mathematics Paper 2: reasoning
    • mathematics Paper 3: reasoning
    KS2 English reading test

    The English reading test has a greater focus on fictional texts. There is also a greater emphasis on the comprehension elements of the new curriculum. The test consists of a reading booklet and a separate answer booklet.

    Pupils will have a total of 1 hour to read the 3 texts in the reading booklet and complete the questions at their own pace. There will be a mixture of genres of text. The least-demanding text will come first with the following texts increasing in level of difficulty.

    Pupils can approach the test as they choose: eg working through one text and answering the questions before moving on to the next. The questions are worth a total of 50 marks.

    KS2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test

    The grammar, punctuation and spelling test has a greater focus on knowing and applying grammatical terminology with the full range of punctuation tested.

    The national curriculum sets out clearly which technical terms in grammar are to be learnt by pupils and these are explicitly included in the test and detailed in the new test framework. It also defines precise spelling patterns and methodologies to be taught, and these are the basis of spellings in the test.

    There will be no contextual items in the test.

    As in previous years, there are two papers, Paper 1: questions and Paper 2: spelling.

    Paper 1: questions consists of a single test paper. Pupils will have 45 minutes to complete the test, answering the questions in the test paper. The questions are worth 50 marks in total.

    Paper 2: Spelling consists of an answer booklet for pupils to complete and a test transcript to be read by the test administrator. Pupils will have approximately 15 minutes to complete the test, but it is not strictly timed, by writing the 20 missing words in the answer booklet. The questions are worth 20 marks in total.

    KS2 mathematics test

    There are 3 papers; Paper 1: arithmetic; Paper 2: reasoning; and Paper 3: reasoning.

    Paper 1:  The arithmetic test assesses basic mathematical calculations. The test consists of a single test paper. Pupils will have 30 minutes to complete the test, answering the questions in the test paper. The paper consists of 36 questions which are worth a total of 40 marks.

    The questions will cover straightforward addition and subtraction and more complex calculations with fractions worth 1 mark each, and long divisions and long multiplications worth 2 marks each.

    Papers 2 and 3 Pupils will have 40 minutes to complete each reasoning test, answering the questions in the test paper. Each paper will have questions worth a total of 35 marks.

    In some answer spaces, where pupils need to show their method, square grids are provided for the questions on the arithmetic paper and some of the questions on Paper 2.