How We Assess

 RWSCurriculum Transparent

At Ravens Wood School, our main assessment focus is our daily use of 'responsive teaching' - the advanced questioning used by our teachers in every lesson to assess students' knowledge and understanding, informing planning ahead of the next lesson. This formative assessment is underpinned by our Review, Plan, Teach approach to marking - further details below.

How we mark at RWS:

Our approach to marking and feedback is detailed in the video below.

How we assess students and report to parents/carers:

Students in all year groups will have at least either a parent’s evening or the outcomes of a summative assessment reported home each term. The full 2023/24 Assessment and Reporting calendar is attached at the bottom of this section. However, it is important to note that this calendar is provisional and subject to change in response to future Government updates.

With regards to RWS7, we need to introduce a bespoke and comprehensive approach to understanding where each of our year 7 pupils are on their learning journey. With this in mind, we are adopting a unique fourfold approach to assess their current working level, which is outlined below:

Week Commencing Strategy Further Information
4th September Mixed Ability Sets
  • Based upon information received from feeder primary schools, the Transition Team have placed Year 7 students into mixed ability sets.
  • Students will remain in these groups for the vast majority of their subjects. However, after Christmas, students will be streamed on ability in Mathematics and Science.
5th September Writing Age Task
  • Students will be given an open-ended writing task in response to a picture stimulus.
  • Through comparative judgment marking a suggested writing age will be determined for each student.
4th & 11th September Cognitive Ability Testings (CATs)
  • Three 45-minute computer-based tests covering verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, nonverbal reasoning and spatial ability.
  • These tests are reasoning, not knowledge, based and therefore a student will not be disadvantaged if they have not accessed learning over lockdown.
  • We will use the outcomes of these tests to inform setting decisions and, along side the KS2 data we have received from feeder primary schools, KS4 target grades.
26th September Snapshot Assessments
  • Mathematics, English and Science only.
  • These are short, recall 40-minute papers which will cover content from KS2 and the beginning of Year 7.
  • These will be sat in classrooms during normal timetabled lessons.
  • Students will be informed in advance of the specific dates of these assessments, along with topic lists, by each subject’s Head of Department via Show My Homework.
  • Outcomes will be used alongside the writing age and CATs outcomes to inform the class review window after half term to place students into ability based streams in Mathematics and Science and to ensure that the year 7 classes in all other subjects are truly mixed ability.

With regards to RWS11 and RWS13, all PPE (Pre-Public Examination) assessments will be in the Examination Hall and invigilated by external invigilators. Should we receive any information from the Department of Education regarding concessions or alternative arrangements for summer public examinations for these year groups, we will communicate them to you.

With regards to RWS12, individual Departments may elect to carry out baseline assessments of students at the beginning of the course in order to determine initial levels of understanding and help inform future planning.

How we revise:

We encourage all of our students to adopt a proactive ethos to their studies in order to become truly independent learners. Effective revision at Ravens Wood School must be deliberate, active and repetitive . To help our students work out which revision strategy is the right one for them, please look at the "Making the most of it" revision document below. This was originally put together for our students in RWS11, but the techniques discussed are applicable to all year groups!

Exam Revision Techniques
pdf
Assessment and Reporting Calendar 2023-2024
pdf