Institution Context

Nature

The school is an inner city, multi-ethnic primary and nursery school in which children speak 32 different languages. The Head had been appointed two and a half years ago when the school was close to being put into special measures. Having adopted a 'Can Do' ethos, the school has made great strides. Staff work as a team and parents put the school as their first choice instead of last. Although attainment is low, given the socioeconomic background and EAL needs of the children, the contextual value added figures are rising. Challenging Fischer Family Trust 'D' targets are set and surpassed. In January 2008 the school was placed joint sixteenth in the league table of 'most improved primary schools' in the country.

Focus

The school has an assessment policy, a calendar for assessment and a tracking system to monitor progress in literacy and numeracy but wanted help to develop teacher assessments in science. This was to be the focus of our intervention and support. Our aims were to help the school develop a cohesive assessment policy for science and to advise on strategies and moderation techniques to help implement the policy across all year groups.

Working with staff

Staff involved were well prepared by the school for our visits and welcomed the support we were able to offer. Teachers were willing to be observed in the classroom and at a moderation meeting. After each visit, the science co-ordinator worked hard to fulfil the agreed aims and good progress was made.

CIEA Intervention

Number of meetings

We made five visits to the school, meeting with key personnel and agreeing the action plan. We observed two lessons, one in science and one in mathematics as a point of comparison.

Use of tools

We used the CEA audit tool to create an initial picture of the school's expertise in assessment, but found it helpful to create a different document for use with the school that was tailored to the specific issues that needed addressing. The same was true for the CEA action-planning tool. It was a useful guide but we created an action plan with detailed objectives that would immediately resonate with primary teachers.

Processes

The school needed to develop:

• schemes of work with appropriate integral assessment tasks that reflected National Curriculum levels
• assessment for learning strategies that enabled children to take responsibility for their own learning and helped them to celebrate their own success
• a tracking system to monitor progress in science that could be used for reporting to parents and to teachers as children moved up the school
• a system of moderating pupils' work to ensure common standards across the team and greater staff confidence in applying levels.

Impact

View of CEA

The school has begun to establish similar assessment arrangements to those of literacy and numeracy for science.

• It will reconsider schemes of work, building into each task opportunities for pupils to demonstrate assessment objectives.
• A system of tracking all science objectives has been formulated and circulated to all staff.
• Moderation of some work has taken place which increased teacher confidence in applying levels.
• The science co-ordinator was supported in leading a whole school meeting for the first time.