School Reports & Assessment

Assessing Your Child’s Progress

At Turnfurlong Junior School, we use a variety of robust methods to evaluate the progress of our students.  These are used in conjunction with teacher assessments as we recognise that children can show their understanding of their learning in different ways.

On entry to Year 3, all students undertake a set of tests as a baseline for Reading, Maths and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling.  The tests are from Rising Stars and are designed to track progress, support teacher assessments and inform future planning.   In addition to this, Accelerated Reader is used to determine reading ranges and ages which is a computer-based assessment and gives further information about about each pupil’s reading ability.  Twice a year we track children’s spelling ages and these are used to support planning for our lessons - both discrete spelling lessons and through children’s English lessons.

Writing assessments is purely teacher assessment and is conducted formally once a term alongside the Rising Stars tests and reported to parents.

Teacher Assessments

We know that there is a huge variation in the bands that are given for the testing systems used in education.  To ensure that we have accurate information to give families and teachers, we use a banding system which is linked to the end of Key Stage 2 test grades.  We have included a category called Aspiring (ASP) to indicate where children are working close to the standardised score.

A brief explanation of standards and scores is below:

Assessment Timetable and Reporting Periods

Tests are for the whole school unless otherwise stated.

Rising Stars Tests  - Reading, Maths, GAPS (Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling)

Each term, children take the Rising Stars assessment test to monitor how they are doing against year group expectations.  Following these, the data sheets are shared with parents / carers.  After each term’s test, the information on the report is built on, so patterns and trends can be seen over time.  

The boundaries for the Maths and Reading papers changed in 2021.  Please see the breakdown of boundaries for each subject individually.  Rising Stars have adapted this due to an increase in difficulty of the new editions.

A brief explanation of standards and scores is below: