At Weavers Academy we use both formative and summative assessment to track students progress.   

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is intended to inform day to day teaching and learning. It consists of a range of interactions with pupils that provides immediate and ongoing feedback and immediate interventions during lessons to enable students to make progress.

Formative assessment allows the teacher to evaluate and adapt their teaching to meet the needs of students allowing them to learn more effectively therefore positively impacting their learning to deepen the understanding. In addition, it allows students to evaluate their own work (or that of others) and consider how to improve.

Summative Assessment
Summative assessment allows the teachers to analyse whether the intended curriculum has been taught effectively and enables the reviewing of their curriculum to ensure that students are able to know, remember and do more because of it.

PLCs

At Weavers, we have an innovative way of tracking students progress and identifying gaps in learning, which we call PLCs.  Every course and subject has been broken down into a series of content areas which are called PLCs, and knowledge organisers for each PLC have been created.  In lessons, students RAG rate their knowledge organisers to show their understanding, and additional resources are linked to support areas of misconception.  After assessments, students again RAG their knowledge organisers to show what knowledge they have retained and what they need to revisit.  When reporting to parents, each subject will identify a selected number of PLCs on which students should focus in order to improve their overall progress, and we ask that parents support at home by working through the knowledge organisers for those identified PLCs.  Knowledge Organisers to support areas of development can be found on the subject pages of the website, or via this link: Subject Resources

Reporting to Parents
Our main way of communicating a student’s progress with parents is through reports which are sent home. These reports give a brief overview of how a student is working and progressing in the range of subjects taught. This is a ‘snapshot’ based on the evidence available at the time of drafting the report.

Although we do not share every test with parents/carers, we ask staff to summarise student progress and report this to parents through an annual written report and interim data reports throughout the year. These reports are our most important form of communication with parents and will sometimes raise questions regarding a student’s progress.

We strongly encourage parents to read the reports carefully and if the report raises questions, to contact either the subject teacher, form tutor or, if it is across several subjects, the Year Leader.  By working together, we can support your child to feel happy, secure, and able to achieve. We also use parent evenings to further discuss all aspects of pupil progress (linked to pastoral care and academic needs).

Parents’ Evenings
We use parent evenings to further discuss all aspects of pupil progress (linked to pastoral care and academic needs) and welcome parents and carers to contact school at any time if they wish to discuss any aspect of their child’s education or welfare.

As a school we place greater emphasis on students’ final grade, while ensuring they are on track throughout the year. The reports are our main way of communicating with parents about the progress that their child is making. When reports are issued it is also an opportunity for parents to talk with their child about the progress they are making in lessons. If the report raises issues, parents should contact their child’s tutor in the first instance.