Assessment in Willow Park Junior School

The following introduction to Assessment within Willow Park Junior School incorporates extracts from the NCCA brief on assessment in primary schools. Because willow delivers the Primary School Curriculum, it follows that the school should use the recommended Assessment procedures therein.

Assessment is an essential component of a successful teaching and learning process.

The Curriculum indicates the elements of each subject area that should be assessed and suggests several procedures that can be used. In both short-term and long-term planning, the class teacher gives careful consideration to the forms and uses of assessment that will best facilitate the learning process and provide the most relevant information about the progress of individual boys.

Assessment is central to the process of teaching and learning. In Willow Park, it is used to monitor learning processes and to ascertain achievement in each area of the curriculum.

Through assessment, the class- teacher constructs a comprehensive picture of the short-term and long-term learning needs of each boy and plans future work accordingly.

Assessment is also used to identify boys with specific learning difficulties, so that the nature of the support and assistance they need can be ascertained, and appropriate strategies and programmes put in place to enable them to cope with the particular difficulties they are encountering. Although Willow Park has its own Learning Support department, as an Independent School, it does not have access to the learning support services that are available within the State sector of education.

Assessment assists communication about an individual boy’s progress and the development between teacher and child, between teacher and parent, and between teacher and teacher. It helps each boy to become more self-aware as a learner and to develop powers of self-assessment. It also helps to ensure the quality of education in Willow Park Children and learning

Assessment is integral to all areas of the curriculum and it encompasses the diverse aspects of learning: the cognitive, the creative, the affective, the physical and the social.

In addition to the products of learning, the strategies, procedures and stages in the process of learning are assessed.

Assessment includes a boy’s growth in self-esteem, interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviour, and the acquisition of a wide range of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. In order to take account of the breadth and variety of learning it offers, the curriculum contains a varied range of assessment tools.

These range from

• Informal tools such as teacher observation, classwork, homework and discussion with pupils to more

• Formal tools such as diagnostic tests and standardised tests.

• Assessment tools such as projects, portfolios and curriculum profiles are used to link formal and informal approaches.

In planning teaching, learning and assessment procedures, teachers in Willow select those that best meet their needs at a particular time.

These classes partake in many exploratory and suitably structured learning scenarios.

All boys are closely monitored regarding general development and progress.

Teachers and Parents liaise regularly throughout these early school years.

Homework is introduced as learning evolves.

An end of year report is written by the teacher, based on her/his professional observation of the pupil.

2nd . - 6th. Form

Formative assessment takes place throughout the school day.

This includes homework and the traditional Willow Park fortnightly reviews booklets.

Homework allows pupils to review work done in class and gives the class-teacher an insight into a pupil’s progress and understanding

Progress Booklets are marked every two weeks.

The school attaches a great deal of importance to these Fortnightly Progress Booklets. They are filled in by class teachers and signed off by school Deans and Parents. Parents are expected to peruse them and sign off accordingly on a fortnightly basis.

Summative assessment is structured as follows:

There are a series of tests at the end of the Christmas and Summer terms. Reports are sent to parents giving general test results and comments by class-teachers on a pupil’s progress, involvement in school life and extra-curricular activities.

Class tests may occur at various times throughout the school year at the behest of the class teacher.

Parents are afforded the opportunity of discussing their son’s progress in the School with class teachers on an informal basis. However, parents must remember to arrange a mutually suitable time for such brief discussions.

Remember, teachers have a primary care to their classes throughout the school day.

A more formal setting for discussing pupil’s progress is at the annual Parent-Teacher meetings.

As noted below, parents may contact their son’s Dean at any time during the school year and arrange an appropriate time to meet and discuss issues of concern / interest.

A whole school assessment is regularly undertaken in both English and Mathematics using standardised norm referenced tests.

The results of these are used for school planning and learning support purposes.

Learning Support

The Learning Support Department endeavours to ensure that there is an appropriate system of identification of the special needs of pupils at all stages of their progress through the school and that there is an adequate, co-ordinated and continuous response to the special needs identified.