Assessment and Data
We are very proud of our Maths data and have worked hard to close the gaps after a disruptive couple of years. The whole school continues to work on 'Maths Anxiety' to ensure our Maths attainment is more inline with our Reading and Writing attainment.
What does assessment look like in Power Maths?
Assessment is integrated throughout the Power Maths lessons and unit structure. This helps teachers to make regular assessments of children’s understanding to inform your teaching and measure progress. For children, assessment is a chance for them to review key concepts and reflect on their learning. Opportunities for assessment include:
• Formative assessment within every lesson
• Summative assessment at the end of each unit, half-term and year
• Teacher notes that help you identify and address misconceptions • Unit assessment grids to help you to track progress
Before starting to teach a new unit, teachers make sure that children have secured the prerequisite skills and vocabulary.
• Each unit begins with a start of unit check, designed to resurface the skills and vocabulary that children will need to build on in the upcoming unit.
• As a whole class, children discuss the vocabulary they already know, and review prior learning through mathematical representations.
• Teachers look out for any continued misconceptions or gaps in understanding and plan to deliver interventions before teaching the unit
Guided practice is a valuable opportunity to assess children's understanding during the lesson.
• The Think together section of the lessons provide opportunities for guided practice.
• The practice is carefully scaffolded to support all children to consolidate their understanding.
• Use children's responses to identify who has grasped the concept and who may still have areas of weakness in their understanding
Independent practice is a further opportunity to assess children's understanding. The independent practice in the children's books provides a written record of understanding. Exercises are built on the principles of varied and intelligent practice, so children can demonstrate the depth of their understanding. They provide opportunities for you to gather rapid feedback on areas of strength, weakness and misconceptions.
By reflecting on learning, teachers and children gain valuable information about whether children have mastered the concept and the depth of their understanding.
• At the end of each lesson there is a Reflect question in the Practice Book.
• Use children's responses to gain an insight into the depth of their understanding and plan your next teaching steps.
Questioning and metacognition
The Ofsted research highlights the importance of effective questioning as a key feature of teaching that has an impact on learning. Subject leaders should identify best practice in the use of questioning within their subject and share this with colleagues.
The Education Endowment Foundation has identified metacognition as having the greatest impact on pupil progress.
This is taken from a Focus publication which provides suggestions for questions at each stage of the knowledge dimension for each level of Bloom’s revised taxonomy:
