Setting a starting point for progress this year

With the Common Inspection Framework from Estyn (September 2017) there has been a shift towards analysing progress made in school. Inspectors look at progress made in the current academic year, across the Key Stage/Phase and since starting school.
Incerts can help you monitor progress, identify pupils falling behind, and put interventions in place to drive forward learning. Our Help & Advice section has lots of ideas to help, in particular the Tracking Progress page.The Year 3 conundrum
Incerts uses a pupil’s scores from the end of the previous year as the starting point from which to record current year progress – without a ‘previous score’, progress cannot be measured. Normally, this isn’t a problem because pupils are usually assessed against the same descriptors year-to-year. However, when a pupil moves from being assessed against Outcomes in the Foundation Phase to Levels in Key Stage 2, things get a little bit tricky.With the *old* descriptors, Outcomes 4, 5 and 6 “aligned” with Levels 1, 2 and 3. Whilst the link was tentative and much debated, Incerts was able to transfer information to aid progress tracking in Year 3.

Then, Welsh Government produced “recalibrated Outcomes” in 2015 when the Reception Baseline was introduced. Last year was the first year where pupils were assessed against these more challenging descriptors at the end of Year 2, and then transitioned to KS2 Levels in Year 3 – as expected, it has thrown up a variety of issues!

Following this change, the ‘alignment’ has been completely broken and Year 3 teachers will always begin the year with no Year 2 ticks on the Assess pages. Consequently, there is no ‘previous score’ on the same scale, and so Incerts has no starting point for measuring progress in Year 3.

In order to accurately demonstrate pupils’ progress in Year 3, we therefore recommend setting an ‘on-entry’ assessment at the beginning of Year 3. The obvious benefit is that you’ll create a ‘previous score’ for each pupil, against the same descriptors (KS2 Levels) – you’ll then be comparing like with like.

So how can I do this on Incerts?
We’ve developed a way for teachers to record an initial assessment for pupils in Year 3, and then push it back to create this starting point.

At the beginning of the year, Year 3 teachers should spend some time observing their new pupils, and if possible, work with the Year 2 teacher to establish what they can do. When ready, teachers should record their initial assessments on Incerts (this will have an impact on workload of course, so your school may decide to do this in literacy and numeracy only, or just the core subjects, for example).

Once recorded, someone with Admin rights must set the assessments as the starting point. They need to go to Edit and then Edit School, and hover over the ‘advanced feature’ next to the Set On-Entry button and click the link that appears.

​This takes you to a new page where you should follow these steps:

     ​1. Select “All of Yr 3” in the “Class/Group” dropdown
​2. Tick boxes for the pupils you wish to create a starting point for (or Select All)
​3. Press Move Ticks

     ​4. Read the message and tick the box to confirm you have understood the warning
​5. Confirm the operationAll assessments recorded to this point in Year 3 will then be pushed back so that they appear in the previous year (i.e. Year 2). Teachers will notice that the ticks will have changed from the green colour (denoting Year 3) to orange (Year 2), and they will be able to record pupils’ progress through the rest of the year against this starting point.Setting an ‘On-Entry’ Assessment for Nursery PupilsSchools with a Foundation Phase will already be aware of the process for setting the Reception Baseline on Incerts. But some schools also have a Nursery setting, and since Estyn might be interested in seeing progress “since starting school”, it can be useful to record an ‘On-Entry’ assessment when Nursery pupils start at your school.

To do this, Nursery teachers need to record what pupils can do when they first start at the school. Then, much like the process described above for Year 3, someone with Admin Right needs to set the assessments as the starting point.

For the new pupils that start in September, simply click the Set On-Entry button on Edit School.

The Set On-Entry button can only be pressed once each academic year. So, for late starters or staggered intakes, you will need an extra step to record their On-Entry positions:

1. Again, someone with Admin rights needs to go to Edit and then Edit School
2. Hover over the ‘advanced feature’ next to the (now greyed out) Set On-Entry button and click the link that appears
3. Use the “Class/Group” dropdown to select “All of Nrsry” or a specific Nursery class
4. Tick boxes for the pupils you wish to create a starting point for
5. Press Move Ticks
6. Read the message and tick the box to confirm you have understood the warning
7. Confirm the operation

For more information, please see Setting Baseline & On-Entry.

We hope this is clear and helpful, but as always, we’re here to help – if you have any questions, please contact our Support Team.

Adam Wilkinson, Support Team