17TH January 2023
Dear Parents and Carers,
In the next few weeks, your child will be taking online personalised assessments for Reading, Numeracy Procedural and Numeracy Reasoning. This letter is here to help you understand the feedback they will be given following the assessments as well as informing you of the dates of the assessments.
These assessments do not give a test score. The purpose of the assessments is to help support progression in reading and numeracy skills. After your child has completed these assessments, schools have access to feedback on learners’ skills, progress, age-standardised scores, and a range of reports to help plan teaching and learning. More information on personalised assessments can be found on this link.
What will be assessed?
The reading personalised assessments provide information on how well your child understands a text and whether they are able to make judgements about what they are reading. Numeracy (Procedural) focuses on the numerical facts and procedures – the numerical ‘tools’ that are needed to apply numeracy within a range of contexts. Lastly, the Numeracy (Reasoning) assessments provide information on how well your child can use and apply what they know in order to solve numerical problems.
How do the assessments work?
The questions are chosen from a large question bank. Each question is selected based on the answer given to the previous question. If a pupil gets a question right, they are given a slightly harder question. If they are unable to answer, answer incorrectly, or skip a question, they receive a slightly easier one. All pupils will get some questions right, and some questions wrong, as this gathers information on the limits of what each pupil can do at a particular time. This means pupils will receive an assessment that is unique to them.
What feedback will I receive?
The learner feedback reports for Reading and Numeracy (Procedural) highlight the learner’s strengths as demonstrated in a particular assessment (the hardest questions they got right) and possible areas for development (some of the questions that they got wrong). Statements are presented in the report along with a sample question and/or text for each statement (not the same question that the learner received). Up to 4 statements will be included in each section, but the number may be fewer if the learner answered very few questions, for example if a learner skips nearly all the questions.
In addition to the feedback on skills, individual learner reports on progress are available the day after each assessment has been taken. These show the age standardised score for the most recent assessment. The age-standardised score is calculated by comparing an individual learner’s assessment score with the scores of other learners in Wales who were born in the same year and month. A copy of your child’s feedback can be accessed through your child’s HWB login details. To help you access your personalised assessment information we have created a short video here: https://youtu.be/IVgQjaFHIXY
Sample assessments with answer booklets have been uploaded to our StudyZone page: [CLICK HERE].
Dates of assessments:
Reading:
Numeracy Procedural:
If you would like any additional information about the personalised assessments, please contact the school office.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. D. Lewis
Curriculum Coordinator.
