Assessment and Progression within Curriculum for Wales

The guidance for assessment in the new curriculum for wales documents states that: As Curriculum for Wales rolls out in schools and settings across Wales, it marks a significant shift in the role of assessment within education, at both a national and a school/setting level. We are clear that the purpose of assessment is to support each individual learner to progress at an appropriate pace, ensuring they are supported and challenged accordingly. To do so, the Curriculum for Wales (CfW), as defined in the Supporting Learner Progression: Assessment Guidance sets out that we assess for three key reasons to:

• support individual learners on an ongoing, day-to-day basis

• identify, capture and reflect on individual learner progress over time

• understand group progress in order to reflect on practice

This means that aspects of our previous arrangements that do not support the ethos of Curriculum for Wales will be removed and new requirements will be introduced to ensure that supporting learners to make progress is at the heart of assessment going forward. As part of this, teachers can build on and further develop assessment methods that are already in use to support learners to progress on an ongoing, day-to-day basis, and look to develop new strategies.

We have worked extremely hard in designing a bespoke curriculum which is relevant to our children and school context, selecting the knowledge, skills and experiences that best support our learners to progress in the ways described in Curriculum For Wales. We will be using ‘Learner Progress Meetings’ termly to engage in conversations around progression with learners, using the principles of progression and the progression code to support this work. Over the coming year, we will also be engaging with Parents and Carers in order to support understanding around the changes to assessment and progression and to review and improve our methods of reporting to parents.