Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution

Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution Stephen Betts (Malin Bridge Primary) Sheffield Primary School Leaders Conference November 2013

A Sheffield Solution – The Story So Far • Last summer the Primary Leaders Partnership agreed to fund a data sharing pilot. • On the 17th July the Department for Education published ‘Primary assessment and accountability under the new national curriculum’.

“Ongoingassessment is a crucial part of effective teaching, but it should be left to schools. The government should only prescribe how statutory end of key stage assessment is conducted.” • “… the current system of national • curriculum levels and level descriptions • will be removed and not replaced.” • ‘Primary assessment and accountability under the new national curriculum’

A Sheffield Solution – The Story So Far • Last summer the Primary Leaders Partnership agreed to fund a data sharing pilot. • On the 17th July the Department for Education published ‘Primary assessment and accountability under the new national curriculum’. • The removal of national curriculum levels brings considerable challenges to data sharing … schools need to be collecting the same data in the same way to be in a position to make comparisons. • The pilot was narrowed to focus on one online system that could be developed in a way that made it possible to incorporate any changes to our assessment approach. • A new group was formed to look into the possibility of a Sheffield solution to the issues around assessment.

Sheffield Assessment Project Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution (Sheffield Primary School Leaders Conference, November 2013)

Sheffield Assessment Project • There was agreement that it would benefit children, staff and schools if there was a broadly common approach to assessment across the city. • We were very mindful that schools will find it difficult to introduce significant changes for next September and so started with the idea that it would be good to map the new assessment system to the existing levels. • Volunteers tried to do this work and found it impossible … new descriptors much more narrow and the differences between levels and year group based descriptors was too hard to overcome. • We have (since Tuesday afternoon!) the beginnings of a Sheffield approach to assessment … this is very much a work in progress.

Sheffield Assessment Project • The DfE “expect schools to have a curriculum and assessment framework that meets a set of core principles” … • Sets out the steps to reach/exceed end of key stage expectations • Enables schools to measure whether pupils are on track • Enables schools to pinpoint aspects of the curriculum in which pupils are falling behind, and recognise exceptional performance • Supports teaching planning • Supports reporting to parents and other schools • We have made a start with an assessment scale, a first sense of what progress would look like in this scale and we have begun the conversation about the language we use to describe attainment and progress.

Sheffield Assessment Project • We have based the scale on the new National Curriculum descriptors for each year group. • The approach builds on the Foundation Stage concept that children develop across a descriptor … progressing through Emerging / Developing / Secure. • We are conscious that schools need to be able to show progress … three steps within a ‘year’ may not do this well … the scale has six steps. • We have called each point on the scale a ‘learning step’ and the steps currently start at 19 to enable them to follow on from the 18 steps that currently describe Foundation stage.

Draft Sheffield Assessment Scale Accessing Developing Consolidating Refining Secure Established

Sheffield Assessment Scale • We have started to consider what progress would look like within this scale and the language for describing progress … • Limited Progress … 5 or less learning steps • Typical Progress … 6 learning steps • Rapid Progress … 7 or more learning steps • This equates to two steps per term (one per half term) being typical progress. • Typical progress would move the ‘typical child’ from being ‘Y1 Established’ to ‘Y2 Established’ in a year, and so on.

Sheffield Assessment Project • What are the next steps? • Monitor the developing landscape nationally. • Agree the Sheffield Assessment Scale. • We need to exemplify what the different learning steps would look like … a proportion of the descriptor? Certain key landmarks within the descriptor? • Consider the relationship between Foundation Stage and Y1. • Consider what replaces p-levels. • Consider the relationship between Y6 and Y7. • Develop CPD materials to support school leaders. • Develop materials to support practitioners using the new scale. • Other things we haven’t thought of yet! Moorfoot – 8am Friday 29th November

Potential Benefits • Strength and security in numbers … doing the same thing as a big group of schools is more likely to have rigour, coherance and credibility. • Sheffield system would support a common approach to CPD, moderation, etc. • Less workload. Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution (Sheffield Primary School Leaders Conference, November 2013)

Data Sharing Pilot Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution (Sheffield Primary School Leaders Conference, November 2013)

Data Sharing Pilot - Information • Learning Community G are involved in a pilot to develop an online data analysis system. • The plan is to develop the functionality and overcome the technical issues with Learning Community G schools and then roll out to the city next summer. • Key principles … • The process of uploading must be as simple as possible and the data must come from SIMS so that schools don’t need a new/separate system. • This does not replace an in-school tracker and must leave schools free to choose the tracker they prefer. • Any school who uploads their own live data (in-year data for all year groups) can have access to the data of other schools (not pupil level). • There will be a facility to search for similar schools and create groups of schools to compare/ benchmark against. • Sheffield children benefit when schools collaborate and sharing data makes collaboration effective and impactful.

Data Sharing Pilot – Demo Version • The first ‘demo version’ has been created – we are hoping to be online and using the Learning Community G schools’ autumn teacher assessment data from January. • Stage One … School will login and upload a data file • (file exported from SIMS as already happens)

Data Sharing Pilot – Demo Version • Stage Two … School will have a homepage which includes information about the characteristics of the school. • The school will be able to see pupil level data here but when other users look at this page this will be removed.

Data Sharing Pilot – Demo Version • Stage Three … the School will be able to compare its live data (in-year for all year groups) with other schools. • A user school will be able to search for other schools to compare data with, using the data itself and school characteristics information. • There will be the facility to create school groups to compare data with … pre-loaded groups (e.g. Sheffield Schools, Learning Communities, Families of Schools, etc.) and groups created by the user. • There will also be the facility to compare the data of school groups with other school groups (e.g. the data of a learning community against other LCs or Sheffield as a whole). • Wherever there is an opportunity to compare to national data this will be included.

Data Sharing Pilot – Demo Version • The next step is develop the data analysis functions (e.g. what do we want it to be able to do) and overcome the technical issues (e.g. make it work) in Learning Community G. • The work of the Sheffield Assessment Project team will determine the expectations, language and data content. !Dummy Data!

Data Sharing Pilot – Next Steps • This has the potential to improve partnership working … • An individual school could compare its own in-year data to that of other schools, with the facility to find similar schools. • A group of schools would have live data to work with and analyse … and the ability to compare the group to other groups. • The future development (beyond next year) could potentially include … built in messaging … an in-school pupil tracker facility for schools that want to use it … collaborations with other cities. • The priority now is to have a working functional system for all Sheffield schools to use from September 2014 … which is based on the approach to assessment decided by the Sheffield Assessment Project … we are very aware that how well it works is more important than how much it can do in the early versions!

What do we want people to do? • Buy into the idea that a Sheffield solution is desirable. • Not buy into an ‘off the shelf’ solution without considering the shared approach. • Spread the word … make sure that this is discussed at HT meetings so that nobody makes a different choice without at least considering a shared approach. • Think about how your school can contribute to making this as successful as it can be. Moorfoot – 8am Friday 29th November Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution (Sheffield Primary School Leaders Conference, November 2013)

Assessment & Data Analysis - a Sheffield Solution