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 and student progress.
Learning and Thinking Skills makes allowances for the spiky profiles that pupils and students 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 and students.
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 and students who are closing the gap that exists between them and their age-related expectations.