Impact

The impact and measure of the effectiveness of our English curriculum is evident in hearing children articulately discuss the books they have read and enjoyed, through quality writing samples and in meeting and interacting with our pupils and experiencing their extensive and impressive vocabulary and phrasing.

Effective formative assessment is one of the major factors in teaching every child to become a reader and writer. This means teachers need a strong grasp of where every child is, both their strengths and the areas in which they need to develop. Teachers at Thomas Jones utilise oral feedback, written individual feedback, one to one discussions, group discussions, peer assessment and class assessment as ways to ensure immediate feedback is afforded children to help them in their next steps to becoming a strong reader or writer.

While National Curriculum levels can be useful in providing a relatively crude indicator of a child’s reading, our teachers will dig deeper in order to understand the set of competencies that underpin that level, identify where the gaps in children’s skills and knowledge lie and then plan how to close them.

Each term, children produce an independent piece of writing for summative assessment. This is kept in a writing folder which tracks each child as they progress through the school.

Teacher assessment performance descriptors are utilised to assess writing at the end of KS1 and KS2. These are utilised to assess whether at the end of each key stage children are ‘working towards the expected standard’, have met the ‘expected standard’ or are working at ‘greater depth’ within the standard. All children will have been taught a range of strategies and skills across the breadth of the curriculum  throughout their time at Thomas Jones which will enable them to both meet and exceed the expected standard in English, across their learning.