Assessment at WEPS

At WEPS teachers use both formative and summative assessment to make informed decisions about students learning.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment involves the teacher gathering and interpreting information about student learning as it happens in the classroom.  It involves constantly checking knowledge and understanding throughout the learning process, showing teacher and students what has been learned and what areas need more work.  It is continuous feedback that allows a teacher to evaluate impact and a student to move their learning forward. 

Formative assessment provides the answers to the questions:

Is learning on track?

What needs to change?

Where does learning go next? It can be immediate (a specific question, thumbs up-thumbs down) or planned (a quiz, a student work samples).

Summative Assessment (scheduled)

Summative Assessments are often formal assessment items or tasks that provide evidence of students’ knowledge, skills and understanding at a point in time.  They provide evidence of student learning to inform teacher judgements about achievement in relation to the curriculum, and performance standards. They occur at specific points in time, often scheduled and may be used to report student achievement to students, parents/carers, educators. 

Summative assessment can also be used as evidence to inform the teachers of what a student has demonstrated up to a point in time, what they are yet to learn, and to monitor progress over time. They provide valuable data which is used to inform future planning for student learning.  Teachers also use the information as an opportunity for learning to provide quality of the feedback to students, parents/carers.

Beginning of year entry Assessment (January) Foundation, Grade 1, Grade 2

Maths Online Interview (MOI) - 1 per year

The MOI is an online tool for assessing the mathematical knowledge of students in the early, middle and upper primary levels. The interview is one-to-one between a teacher and student. The testing is in relation to growth points, which can be described as key "stepping stones" along paths to mathematical understanding.  Teachers record each student's responses directly into the online system. This data is used to generate reports and provide an overview of student achievement and diagnostic information to inform program planning and teacher practice. This assessment is used at the end of each year in preparation for the year ahead.

Beginning of year entry Assessment (January) Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5 and Grade 6

Place Value Assessment Tool  (PVAT)

The PVAT is a paper and pen assessment of Year 3-6 student’s whole number place value knowledge. The assessment was trailed with over 900 students through my PhD research, and using Rasch analysis it was shown to provide valid and reliable data across Year 3-6. The PVAT has two parallel versions, Form A and Form B, which can be used as a pre and post assessments. Form A and Form B are considered ‘parallel’, thus they are equivalent in difficulty. Having parallel test forms, allows us to measure the Effect Size of improvements students make as a result of our place value teaching. The PVAT is designed around the six aspects of place value. It focuses only on whole numbers. There are multiple questions that address name/record, count, make/represent, calculate, compare/order and rename.

Dibels  (Term 1, 2 and 4) Foundation to Grade 6

 DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills. The assessment is designed to be short and used to regularly detect risk and monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills in Foundation through Grade 6. DIBELS results can be used to evaluate individual student development, as well as provide grade-level feedback towards validated instructional objectives.

PAT Maths and PAT Reading (Term 4) Grade 1-6

PAT assessments measure what students in Grade 1 to Grade 6 know, understand and are capable of in Reading and Numeracy, and help monitor progress over time.

 Diagnose starting points

Establish what students are capable of, then challenge them at the appropriate level for effective learning.

 Monitor student progress

PAT assesments are conducted in November each year to measure learning growth over time. The assessment also supports reporting at an individual, group or year level. 

Teacher judgements – Semester 1 (June) and 2 (December)

Teachers make on-balance, holistic and evidence-informed judgements against the achievement standards, and determine scores that accurately reflect where the student is located on a learning continuum for all curriculum areas taught during the reporting period. These judgements form the basis of information presented in student reports.

 Teacher judgements are made through an ongoing process of:

• gathering data over a period of time from a variety of formal and informal tasks (student work samples) and learning experiences
• analysing and interpreting this data
• moderating and checking judgements with colleagues