What does the term assessment mean at Chesterton?

At Chesterton we use the term assessment to mean a piece of work that students complete to show their understanding of an individual piece of knowledge or their understanding of a topic more broadly.  Assessments can be informal such as online quizzes, vocabulary tests or team games or more formal such as a task or set of questions which students complete individually.  Teaching staff will often classify an assessment as formative, where students receive feedback without a grade, the aim being to help students improve further or classify an assessment as summative where students receive feedback as well as a grade or mark.  Formative assessments usually take place during a topic and summative assessments commonly take place at the end of a topic or unit of work.   The term exam is used in year 10 and year 11 where students are preparing for their external GCSE and vocational exams. 

• What does the term assessment mean at Chesterton?
• How often do assessments take place?
• Why do you do such regular assessments?
• Does Chesterton do more tests than other schools?
• Do teachers end up constantly teaching to the test? How do you mitigate against this and ensure there is still a real joy to learning outside of tests?
• How do I know what tests my child has upcoming? How do I understand which of these tests are significant in terms of feeding into end of year grades or summative assessments?
• Do you expect my child to prepare for a test e.g. by doing extra revision? Do teachers provide revision sessions and questions?
• What support does Chesterton offer to help learners manage test-related stress and anxiety? How can I support as a parent?
• What is the provision for assessments for learners with additional needs?
• Are there instances when parents can request their child doesn’t take a test?
• Are students moved down a set as a result of not doing well in an assessment? Conversely are they moved up if they do well?
• How do parents receive information about the outcome of individual assessments? How are results of assessments stored, for how long and who has access to the results?
• Can you clarify what Chesterton’s approach has been to teacher-assessed grades for GCSEs and whether you see this as a permanent change moving forwards? If so, what impact does this have on mock tests etc. in Years 10 & 11?