St Michael's CE Academy

In 2014, the DfE announced that there would no longer be National Curriculum levels and that schools would have to set up their own way of assessing pupils. We have spent a long time researching various different methods of assessing pupils, and we have had demonstrations of various commercial software tracking systems. After careful research with our neighbouring schools, we have adopted the Sheffield STAT system of assessment. Please see this link for more information.

Sheffield STAT – Some Basic Information

• The Sheffield Assessment system has been developed with the support of approximately fifty Sheffield schools.
• The project has developed School Tracking & Assessment Tools (STAT) which support assessment and planning for children at all stages of attainment. There are also materials to support schools in sharing the new system with staff, children, parents/carers, governors and OFSTED.
• The scheme has been shared with various national organisations to quality assure it.

The Sheffield STAT grid

• Attainment Steps will be used to describe Y1/Y3/Y4/Y5 children’s attainment in maths, reading, writing and SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar).
• The steps are organised in the same way that the new curriculum is, so that they provide expectations for each stage of attainment (e.g. a typical Y3 would be at step 24 by the end of the year).
• Just as before each class will have children at lots of different steps (e.g. Y4 children will not all be at a Y4 stage of attainment between steps 25-27).
• The new curriculum is harder so children are likely to start lower down the scale.

Staff Training

Since assessment is such a key aspect of teaching and learning, we have spared no costin establishing a thorough and consistent training programme for our staff. We have bought in the services of Stephen Betts, who devised the system,to deliver staff training on various occasions.Stephen continues to work with our school as we perfect our skill in using Sheffield STAT.