Welsh National Test 2019

Please look out for the Welsh National Test information (Year 2 to 6 only) that will be coming home with your child today.

This year the Welsh Government has introduced Personalised Adaptive Online Assessment for the Procedural maths test.
This means that the children were able to take the assessments at any point in the school year (after they went live in the Spring) rather than just in test week. The assessments work by having an age and ability appropriate starting question presented on line. The response your child gives, how long it takes to answer and how accurate the answer was, determines the next question and so on. For most children the assessments lasted about 20 minutes but for some children they went on for up to 45 minutes. The system had a few flaws, for example some Y2 children were asked to calculate interest on a sum of money - not something your average year 2 might be asked to do, but in general the assessment was less traumatic than the written paper has proved to be in the past. The results of the online assessments appear differently to those of the other tests and don't have a comparative element as this is the first year of testing in this way so they can't be fairly compared with the tests that have gone before. Most pupils only took this assessment once this year, but some year six parents will see two results on their child's progress sheet. This is because a group of 6 pupils were my guinea pigs and took the test early in the term to help me refine the system we eventually used to get the assessments done efficiently in school. Year 2 pupils did not take the test until July, because of this the progress sheets will not be available until September, the same is true for anyone else in the juniors who missed the original assessment date in June and instead took them in a catch up session in July.  So if you do not see a Procedural Maths Progress sheet, do not panic it will come to you when they are released in September. 

The Reading and Reasoning Tests went ahead with paper versions as per the previous years. That means they had to be delivered within a test week window in May. The progress reports for these two tests will also be sent out today.

The online assessments will continue to be rolled out over the next two school years with Reading Assessments Online as of this September and Reasoning Assessments Online as of September 2020. 

Moving forward we intend to carry out online assessments early in the Autumn Term and again towards the end of the school year. The advantage of the new system for schools is that the detailed information regarding exactly which area of the curriculum your child needs extra help with will inform our planning far more effectively than the current diagnostic tool and will help to tailor teaching more to the individual child's needs. It also has the massive advantage that the children are enjoying doing their 'quizzes' on the computer and it takes away much of the stress of the old system. 

If you would like to discuss any of the information above or if you have any questions regarding the progress sheets you receive today, please feel free to call or come into school for a chat.