Assessments

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At Toot Hill School, pupils will be frequently assessed throughout their learning journey, which will take one of three main forms.

Immediate Assessment

Pupils will be frequently assessed in lesson through whole class methods such as the use of mini-whiteboards, questioning, practice questions, mini-quizzes and exit tickets, among other techniques. This is known as Formative Assessment, and provides teachers with immediate feedback as to how well pupils are understanding the new knowledge that is being taught. Teachers will use this information to be responsive in their teaching and adapt their plans either mid lesson, if necessary, or further down the learning cycle.

One of the key aspects teachers at Toot Hill School will use is our Questioning For All strategy. When asking questions to elicit understanding in class, teachers will strategically choose students to answer, rather than taking a hands-up approach. This technique has been proven to increase active participation in class and affords our teachers the flexibility to utilise their professional judgement to gather the information required from a class to inform their next steps in their learning journey.

Connected Assessment

At Toot Hill School we plan our curriculum in order to take students from relative novices in a subject to relative experts. In order to do this, we must plan our learning journeys such that networks of knowledge are built in students' memories, rather than isolated facts.

Over the course of a year, students will complete a number of learning activities that serve as 'Connected Assessments' to their teachers. These will provide information as to how well students are making connections between pieces of knowledge that they have learned over the course of the learning steps that make up a topic.

Whilst we do not expect students to revise for these activities, they will provide teachers with information as to the progress pupils are making in their journey towards expertise. They are also excellent retrieval opportunities that will serve to strengthen the connections between pieces of knowledge.

Permanent Assessment

At strategic points throughout a pupil's journey through our curriculum, we will look to assess whether knowledge and skills have truly transferred to their long term memory, which is our ultimate aim in each subject. For these assessments pupils will be provided with a checklist and these are excellent opportunities to practice revision techniques. These are the assessments that will largely inform our reporting on progress to parents, alongside selected connected assessments detailed above.