Assessment is an intrinsic part of our educational learning journey here at West Hill. Pupils make excellent progress from when they begin their journey in nursery to when they leave at the end of Year 6. All of the staff at West Hill are committed to ensuring that every single pupil is valued and makes good progress regardless of their starting point.

It happens in a variety of ways, both formally and informally. We assess pupils understanding and next steps by:

• Using questioning to draw out understanding. Questioning includes those which are literal, inferential and those which stimulate higher order thinking
• Listening to pupil response in peer and class discussion
• Pupil conferencing- asking pupils to look in depth at a piece of work and explain what they did well and what their next steps are
• Testing formally three times a year and less formally through quizzes and discussions
• Weekly checks of spelling and multiplication
• Ensuring that pupils have reflection time embedded as part of their lessons to give feedback on what they took and understood from the lesson
• Through lesson observations and pupil interviews
• By tracking the progress of pupils each term, across each year and across each key stage

In Early Years, the early year’s goals are assessed informally through their daily activities. The pupils work towards the Early Years Baseline to benchmark what the children can do. The early year’s baseline assessment is then used to inform teachers so that all pupils can be planned for and supported more effectively. At the end of the Early Years (Reception) parents are informed whether their child is emerging, expected or exceeding the age related expectations.

At West Hill we cross moderate our teacher assessments through observations, discussions with pupils and staff and external moderation visits with other Wandsworth schools. We hold three parent meetings a year so that parents can work in partnership with the school to keep track of how well their child is doing.

The statutory Phonics screening takes place each June when pupils are in Year 1. This is a useful way of checking to see whether there are any phonic sounds that need to be revisited in Year 2. We follow the Read, Write Inc. programme at West Hill, where pupils are supported in small groups and work towards becoming confident in the different phonic sounds through speaking and listening activities, repetition and reading. At the end of KS2, pupils have the compulsory SATs which test on pupils understanding of what has been taught in Year 3, Year 4 , Year 5 and Year 6 in Reading, Writing and Maths. It is a more formal approach in line with government expectations.