The type of assessment and examination that our pupils experience at Newton Prep changes as the pupils move through the school.
As a school, we place great importance on regular formative assessment taking place in class by the teacher as we believe this, rather than constant testing, has the most impact on pupil progress. We ask our teachers to provide regular verbal or written feedback to our pupils with time given for them to respond and improve. This practice takes place from Nursery to Year 8, in all subjects.
When it comes to officially assessing our pupils, we do this in a number of ways.
Pupils in the Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception) are assessed against the Early Learning Goals and this is recorded through the online learning journal.
All pupils in Year 1 to Year 8 take standardised assessments on an annual basis in Maths and English, and Cognitive Ability Testing (Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning) begins from Year 3. This helps us to track individual pupil progress on a yearly basis so that we can ensure that our pupils are making the expected academic progress.
All pupils from Year 3 uptake school exams during the school year. When these occur, how frequently they occur and what subjects they are in, depends upon what year group the pupil is in. As a rule of thumb, the number of subjects in which pupils have examined increases as a child goes into the more senior years at Newton Prep, and we use the results to identify areas of strength and the areas for improvement.
