Assessing ICT capability
Assessment is central to classroom practice and is a key professional skill. Effective assessment establishes what a child knows, understands and can do. It also informs the planning of future learning and enables a school to review the effectiveness of the curriculum and teaching.
Schools are required to report annually to parents, describing progress in ICT. This report must contain comments on the child's progress, achievement, strengths, weaknesses and next steps. Teachers will use their professional judgement to determine the most effective method of gathering evidence of pupils' progress but in ICT it will certainly require knowledge of the context in which work was completed rather than simple scrutiny of a finished outcome.
One good approach to assessment of pupil’s ICT capability is to consider, perhaps on an annual basis, what a child has accomplished for each of the ICT applications in the Progression. The three statements under the ICT Outcome heading outline what a child’s ICT capability will look like for that application based on three relevant NC levels. These statements can be used as a basis for judgements on individual children. The ICT Outcome statements will also be found for all levels (1-5) at the end of the Progression booklets and can be downloaded here. Additionally APP type assessment grids are also available.
There is actually no statutory requirement for schools to arrive at a levelled judgement for ICT but the approach to assessment outlined above should mean that levelling can take place with no extra effort beyond that required for Assessment for Learning that would naturally take place.
Teachers in Herefordshire primary schools are increasingly entering pupil assessments directly into SIMS Assessment Manager; the structure you will find there (if you are in a Herefordshire school) has been written to work with the headings in the Herefordshire ICT Progression. Please contact ICT Services SIMS support for assistance or more information.
If levelling of ICT work is attempted, it will be necessary to take into account attainment across all aspects of a child’s ICT work and then to use a “best fit” approach when arriving at an overall level. (In Herefordshire, the SIMS Assessment Manager module will take care of this for you.) As with all National Curriculum assessment, the majority of children in KS1 are expected to be working between levels 1 and 3, with the majority of children achieving level 2 by age 7. The majority of children in KS2 are expected to be working between levels 2 and 5, with the majority achieving level 4 by age 11.