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GL Assessment
is the leading provider of formative assessments to UK
schools.
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We specialise
in literacy, numeracy, reasoning and attitudinal assessments,
including assessments that support children with Additional
Learning Needs (ALN). We have relationships with over two
thirds of primary and secondary schools in Wales and we have
recently acquired Lucid Research, a specialist provider of
assessments for children with ALN. Tests are nationally
standardised, giving measures such as standard age scores, and
include parental reporting where appropriate.
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We have a
distinct philosophy of good assessment practice. We believe
in a ‘whole pupil’ approach, examining a child’s
attitude, ability and attainment to provide a complete
understanding of their needs. This enables schools to get to
know each pupil as an individual, appreciating their strengths,
identifying areas where they might need support and intervention,
and removing any obstacles that are impacting negatively on
attainment. Crucially, this philosophy places the individual
pupil at the heart of a school’s programme of
assessment.
Introduction:
The need for the Bill to encourage good assessment
practice
GL Assessment
welcomes the Bill’s focus on an “integrated,
collaborative, process of assessment, planning and monitoring which
facilitates early and timely intervention”. Teacher
assessment will form the foundation of this process as teachers and
early years professionals are best placed to observe behaviour and
performance that may be indicative of additional learning needs. It
is therefore crucial that teachers are well versed in good
assessment practice.
However, the
Donaldson Report identified assessment and professional development
relating to assessment as a particular weakness of the Welsh
education system. The Committee should explore further how
the Department for Education and Skills’ plans to support the
development of good assessment practice to fully realise the aims
of the Bill.
Below is what
we consider to be best practice in the use of formative assessments
to identify and support pupils with ALN. The progress of
pupils with ALN should be continually tracked, appropriate
educational interventions used to raise attainment, and a clear
assessment made as to the effective of such interventions.
Formative assessments have a crucial role to play throughout this
process.
Identifying
pupils with low ability: early intervention
Formative
assessments are a valuable tool in the process of early
identification of those with additional learning needs.
Importantly, assessments such as those produced by GL Assessment
and Lucid Research, are age standardised, meaning that low
attainment due to a summer birth date will not be misidentified as
being caused by ALN.
It is crucial
that special educational needs are identified during early years
and Key Stage 1. If these issues are not addressed they can become
entrenched and prove much harder to tackle later on.
In 2011, the
Centre for Reading and Language at the University of York published
research which was conducted as part of the standardisation of our
York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC). It
highlighted problems with the current process of identifying pupils
with reading difficulties within primary and secondary schools.
The study found that some students in every secondary school
year group were identified with a reading age of 6 or 7 years and a
substantial proportion of pupils who experience reading
difficulties were not identified on the school’s SEN/ALN
Register. The report said:
“The
most striking finding is the under-reporting of children with
significant reading difficulties. If half of children with reading
difficulties are not on the SEN Register by Year 7, this suggests
to me that it’s unlikely that their reading problems will be
attended to during their secondary schooling.”
“The
data we collected are striking in showing that in each year group,
there are substantial numbers of children with significant reading
difficulties, many reading below the 7-year level. This
finding underlines the fact that it is critical to identify
children at risk of reading difficulties early, certainly well
before secondary school, and for appropriate interventions to be
put in place.”
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Maximising
pupil attainment: continuous assessment
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Clearly every
school must work to maximise the attainment of pupils with ALN.
Formative assessments can play an important role in helping these
pupils exceed expectations.
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To take one
example, our New Group Reading Test (NGRT) supports teachers in
monitoring pupils’ ability to read and how well they
understand what they are reading. These assessments provide
teachers with a comprehensive overview of a pupil’s reading
and comprehension ability while providing a wealth of diagnostic
information identifying areas where they may be experiencing
difficulties.
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Torfaen Local
Authority recently adopted the NGRT to help raise standards across
its 33 schools after an inspection report stated that performance
in secondary schools was among the lowest in Wales on four of the
five main indicators set by the Welsh Government.
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Torfaen
decided that teachers needed an additional, reliable and
independent benchmark to inform their judgements regarding pupil
progress and ALN, and introduced the New Group Reading Test across
the Local Authority. The core objectives were to support
teachers’ own assessment, to provide important diagnostic
information that would help to inform teaching, and to provide an
additional means to identify children with ALN. As Sharon Davies,
Torfaen’s Head of Learning, explains:
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“We
believe that of our schools should have hard evidence on which to
base their target-setting. We need to have a robust benchmark and
we need to be outcome driven. How can you monitor progress
effectively if you don’t have a clear starting point? This is
what NGRT gives us. It’s a highly valuable check and
balance. We decided to administer NGRT in January 2015 so that we
could use the data as mid-year marker, with the National Tests
every summer. We now know where our weaknesses are and how we can
address them sooner than we could before.”
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Most schools
in Torfaen chose to use the digital version of NGRT, which is also
adaptive; in other words, children see different questions
depending on how they move through the test. As Sharon
explains:
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“Using
the digital version of the assessment gave children confidence.
When you have a child with an Additional Learning Need or a child
with a lower ability, their confidence can get easily knocked. With
the questions changing according to their capacity to answer the
questions, it’s a comfortable journey for them –
they’re not aware that they are doing different
questions.”
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“We
need to make sure we’re doing everything we can for our
learners, otherwise we’re not being fair to them. They need
more – and this is what we’re continually aiming
for.”
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The
diagnostic information and narrative reports has indeed meant that
NGRT has enabled the LA to identify children who should have been
on the SEN Register and put the relevant interventions in
place.
Supporting
children with Additional Learning Needs
When a young
person demonstrates poor literacy or numeracy skills, tests can be
used to identify if they in fact have a learning disability.
Assessments such as GL Assessment’s Dyslexia
Screener and Lucid Research’s Rapid Dyslexia
Screener can identify dyslexic tendencies in young people from
the age of four upwards. The screeners recommend intervention
strategies and can play an important part in helping both
specialist and non-specialist teachers distinguish between those
individuals who have poor maths or literacy attainment and those
whose difficulties are associated with dyscalculia or
dyslexia.
Many teachers
are uneasy about applying diagnostic labels at an early age, and
Lucid has developed assessments that do not demand that the label
‘dyslexia’ is used. For example, its Cognitive
Profiling System enables teachers to understand the cognitive
limitations that lie behind dyslexia in children aged four to eight
and to tackle these directly without needing to be concerned about
labels unless they choose to. The Lucid Assessment System
for Schools continues this process for ages 8-15. These
assessments enable teachers to identify potential problems before
they even register a pattern of difficulty and therefore structure
a suitable support programme for use in class before learning
issues become established.
Conclusion
GL Assessment
welcomes the Bill’s focus on improving the means by which
pupils with ALN are identified and supported. The use of
appropriate formative assessments to facilitate this will be a
vital aspect of this process. However, with the Donaldson
Review having identified the use of assessments as an area
requiring improvement, we think that it is important that the
Committee scrutinise how the Welsh Government proposes to improve
assessment practice to mirror the changes proposed by this piece of
legislation.
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