Whole School Progress
In 2015-16 St. Dominic’s launched its new assessment system: SAVI. Using the new national curriculum, GCSE course content and our own assessment criteria, the school developed ‘Learning and Thinking Skills’ to measure pupil progress. Learning and Thinking Skills makes allowances for the spiky profiles that pupils at St. Dominic’s enter the school with. Gaps in learning are easily targeted, and areas of exceptional performance are also captured rather than the ‘best fit’ approach captured by national curriculum levels.
Progress is measured against age related norms in order to allow the school to target the areas of greatest need for individual pupils.
The school has also developed assessment against ‘needs led’ outcomes: non-curricular outcomes that captures progress made through transdisciplinary input. These are:
- Learning to Learn
- Myself and Others
- Language and Communication
- Functional Independence
Using this data, the school has defined measure of Less than Expected progress in order to demonstrate the pupils who are closing the gap that exists between them and their age-related expectations.
For more information about our approach to the Curriculum and Assessment, click here.
Key Stage 2
Key Stage Two progress is graphed separately here in order to examine Key Stage Two as a whole cohort against teacher assessment. While 2014 and 15 data is based on National Curriculum levels, 2016 data is based on our in house measures of progress which are validated against historic assessment but not directly comparable. This data demonstrates that, while attainment and progress outcomes in SATs were low, teacher assessment tells a different story with the proportion of pupils making expected progress in English and maths being significantly higher. The school has increased the provision for writing, resources and curriculum time in Key Stage 2 through the Needs Led Curriculum interventions.
Key Stage 3
Key Stage 3 data for English and maths demonstrates that pupils are making good progress with 69% (15/19) of pupils on track to meet at least expected progress in English and 66% (14/19) of the cohort making at least expected progress in maths. 48% of the cohort for English and 52% of the cohort for maths are making outstanding progress which is significant.
- Progress for disadvantaged pupils in English and maths is broadly in line with progress for other pupils
- Boarders perform significantly better than other pupils in English
- Pupils with SLCN perform particularly well in English
Cohort analysis is demonstrative of consistent progress for all pupils and students. Cohorts have been included so that analysis for all groups is included, however some cohorts are very small and therefore data is less statistically significant (LAC = 1, Girls = 2). Data demonstrates that there are no significant gaps in pupil progress when cohorts are scrutinised. Any seemingly significant differences are attributable to small cohort sizes and therefore not statistically significant.
Whole school progress data and cohort analysis demonstrate that pupils make good progress from their starting points. A large majority of pupils in many subjects including English, maths, computing and humanities make more than expected progress.