Assess - Cognition and learning

Once concerns about a child/young person's learning have been identified, more detailed assessment is likely to be needed to identify the specific areas of concern and potential barriers to learning.

Each area of concern needs further assessment and monitoring. Assessment over time is needed to assess progress and the effectiveness of any interventions that has been put into place. 

The following different types of assessments should be undertaken: 

• Normative assessment (standardised tests to show how the child/young person performs compared to other children/young people the same age)
  
  
• Formative criterion/curriculum-based assessments (assessments that assess curriculum areas and specific skills such as sight word reading/spelling, reading fluency, vocabulary etc and can be compared over time)
  
  
• Ipsative assessment (assess/ plan/do/review cycles to assess how the child/young person is progressing compared to their previous performance).
  
  

Detailed assessment for children not achieving the expected standards of the national curriculum

The DfE have published new pre-key stage standards for statutory teacher assessment judgements for the end of Key stage 1 and Key stage 2 which now should be used for pupils who are working below the national curriculum teacher assessment frameworks, but above P4 of the P scales.

If a pupil is working below P4, teachers should report their assessments using P1 to P4 - see DfE guidance for more details.  The new Engagement Profile which is the replacement for P1 to P4 has just been published by the DfE in draft form and will become statutory in September 2020.

B-squared have also made changes to cover the removal of p-scales above P4 – please see the B-squared website for more details of this (including a webinar).  

In addition please see information from Lancashire County Council about their PIVATS assessment and how it can be used alongside the National Curriculum standards for children/young people who are achieving below expected standards.

Specific assessment of skills

The following links provide more examples of specific assessments for:

• reading (including phonological awareness, accuracy, fluency and comprehension)
  
  
• spelling
  
  
• writing (including handwriting)
  
  
• maths
  
  
• thinking skills, (e.g. visual memory and auditory memory)

Checklists may also be useful as a screening tool to identify areas of concern.  When using checklists, further assessment and information about the areas of concern may be needed to give the information needed to plan appropriate literacy interventions.

Examples of checklists for primary and secondary aged children can be found on the spldtrust website.

Using assessment findings

Once all the assessments have been completed, school staff need to collate the findings to identify:

• what areas of learning need further support and intervention
• the current skills in those particular areas so the effectiveness of any intervention can be evaluated
• targets/outcomes for the intervention period (usually a term)
• what interventions are needed
• when the intervention will be reviewed