How Should We Assess Pupils With SEND?
Lorraine Petersen OBE examines the recommendations of the Rochford Review into how pupils with SEND ought to be assessed and considers what its impact will be…
The Rochford Review (named after its Chair, special school executive head Diane Rochford) was established in July 2015 to review the statutory assessment arrangements for pupils working below the national curriculum test standard.
Its final report (available via tinyurl.com/rochfordreview- final) was published in October 2016 , and outlined 10 recommendations for pupils unable to access statutory assessments, due to having not completed the relevant programmes of study upon reaching the appropriate age (see opposite). Those recommendations are not statutory, but will form part of a widescale review of primary assessment in Spring 2017.
Interim pre-Key Stage standards
Many felt that the ultimate outcome of the Rochford Review would be the replacement of P scales, but an interim report published by the Review in 2015 stated that P scales would remain for at least 2015-16 whilst further discussion took place. Schools therefore continued using P scales to measure those working below the national standards expected at the end of KS1 and KS2, but it was agreed by many that the gap between P8 and the new national curriculum expectations was too wide – hence the introduction of interim pre-Key Stage standards to try and fill the gap.
The end of KS1 thus saw the addition of an extra standard below the existing three – ‘Foundations for the expected standard’ – while three further standards were added to the end of KS2 for reading, mathematics and writing – ‘Foundations for the expected standard’, ‘Early development of the expected standard’ and ‘Growing development of the expected standard’.
These pre-Key Stage standards were meant to be used for pupils not entered into SATs but who were working beyond P scales. Having spoken to many SENCOs across England, however, I am not sure that many schools used them. The difficulty was that schools felt that they had to enter their pupils for the SATs as per the Assessment and Reporting Arrangements (ARA) guidance, which states, “If pupils are considered able to answer the easiest questions, they should be entered for the tests” – yet elsewhere, the ARA guidance also states that a pupil should not take the tests if they have not completed the KS1/KS2 programme of study; are working below the overall standard of the KS1/KS2 tests; and are unable to participate, even with suitable access arrangements.
Many pupils were therefore assessed as ‘Working towards the expected standard’, when in fact they should have been assessed using the interim pre-key stage standards. I would urge schools to think very seriously about their pupil populations at the end of each Key Stage. If they do not meet the full criteria for entry to SATs, then schools should not allow these pupils to participate and instead use the pre-Key Stage standards for teacher assessment only.
What the 10 recommendations mean
The final report called for P scales to be removed, which was not a surprise. The removal of levels raised suspicions that P scales – deemed by many to be no longer fit for purpose – would soon follow.
The Rochford Review identifies two types of pupils among those working below expected standard – those undertaking subject-specific learning and those who are not, which can be generally equated to pupils working at P5 to P8 and those working at P4 and below respectively.
For ‘subject-specific’ pupils, the report proposes extending the pre-Key Stage standards by a further two – ‘Entry to the expected standard’ and ‘Emerging to the expected standard’. This would let teachers assess in finer detail the ‘can do’ aspects of reading, writing and maths at the end of each Key Stage, while allowing progress to be measured across Key Stages for those pupils who will always be working below or towards the expected standard.
My concern, however, is that there are significant gaps in development that these new standards don’t recognise. They overlook a number of learning challenges that pupils between those standards will experience.
The recommendation for pupils not undertaking subject specific learning is that they be assessed using the seven areas of engagement for learning – namely ‘responsiveness’, ‘curiosity’, ‘discovery’, ‘anticipation’, ‘persistence’, ‘initiation’ and ‘investigation’. The Review’s members believe that early development in cognition and learning centres on a range of skills that enable pupils to engage in learning situations, and that assessing this engagement will allow teachers to monitor the amount of attention, interest and involvement that pupils demonstrate in learning situations.
The report goes on to state that assessing pupils not in subject-specific learning against these seven should be made a statutory duty, but notes that there should be no requirement to submit assessment data on these areas to the DfE. Schools will, however, be expected to provide evidence to support dialogues with parents, carers, LAs, inspectors, regional schools commissioners and others to ensure robust and effective accountability.
What happens now?
The majority of pupils not undertaking subject-specific learning will be in special schools or specialist provision, though the rising number of pupils with complex needs in mainstream schools will mean that all schools will require training, support and guidance on implementing the aforementioned seven areas of engagement for such pupils. The assessment process will be formative and based on observation, very similar to current assessment in EYFS.
The biggest challenge for mainstream schools will be to offer non-subject alternative curriculum that won’t conform to the subjectspecific curriculum they offer currently. Since the curriculum must come before assessment, schools should not be looking at the seven areas of engagement as their new curriculum.
As previously noted, the report’s recommendations will soon form part of a wider primary assessment consultation which I would urge all schools to respond to – you can stay up to date with the DfE’s latest consultations via tinyurl.com/dfe-consult.
For pupils identified with SEND, the whole process is flawed and not fit for purpose. The Rochford Review’s recommendations offer an alternative, but so long as we still have schools being judged on SATs results, there will continue to be a pressure on schools to enter all of their pupils for the tests. The current system sets up a significant number of pupils to ‘fail’ – and it needs to change!
The Rochford review’s 10 recommendations
1. Remove the statutory requirement for schools to assess pupils using P scales
2. Make the interim pre-Key Stage standards permanent and extend them to include all pupils engaged in subject-specific learning
3. Limit statutory assessment for pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning to cognition and learning only
4. Introduce a statutory duty for schools to assess pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning against seven aspects of cognition and learning
5. Allow schools to pursue their own approach when making these assessments
6. Improve initial teacher training and staff CPD so that teachers have a better understanding of how to assess pupils working below the standard of national curriculum tests
7. Encourage the sharing of good practice and expertise across all schools 8. Foster collaborative working between schools
9. Schools should not be required to submit assessment data on the seven areas of cognition and learning to the DfE
10. Carry out further work to consider the best way of supporting schools in assessing pupils with EAL.
About the author
Lorraine Petersen OBE is a former headteacher and CEO of nasen, and currently leads an educational consultancy specialising in SEN issues; for more information, visit lpec.org.uk or follow @Lorrainep1957
