National Assessment arrangements

Wednesday, 23 February 2011 11:24

The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) have specific duties to keep under review all aspects of National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage Assessments in England. We refer to these assessments as National Assessment arrangements.

Who at Ofqual reviews National Assessment arrangements?

There are two teams within Ofqual that review these arrangements:

Early Childhood team

The team reviews Early Years Foundation Stage Assessments for children from birth to five years and key stage 1 assessments at age seven.

National Curriculum Assessment Monitoring team

The team reviews National Curriculum Assessments for children from 7 to 14 years, including key stage 2 and 3 National Curriculum Assessments.

What are the Early Years Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum?

Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) covers the period from birth to age five (compulsory school age) and is used in schools and other settings such as nursery schools, private, voluntary and independent (PVI) settings and by Ofsted-registered.

The expectations (goals) that most children should reach by the end of the EYFS are called the early learning goals. The current framework for the EYFS can be found on the Department of Education website.

You can download the Early years a guide to the system here.

Following a national review of the EYFS led by Dame Clare Tickell, the government has consulted on a new framework for implementation from September 2012.

The EYFS Profile is a child’s statutory record of attainment at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage in relation to the early learning goals. The EYFS Profile summarises each child’s development and learning at the end of the EYFS and is based on teachers' / practitioners' ongoing observations and assessments of children engaged in activities, the majority of which should be initiated by the children themselves. It is completed in the final term in reception year and should be passed on to the child’s teacher in Year 1. There are no formal tests or tasks used for EYFS assessment.

The new EYFS framework which is due to come into force in September 2012 will have revised assessment arrangements and a new EYFS profile. 

National Curriculum

The National Curriculum is split into four key stages. What pupils should be taught in each key stage is set out in the programmes of study for each subject.

The table below shows the relationship between key stages, school years and learner ages.

Expected standards of pupils' performance are set out in the attainment targets for each subject. These cover the knowledge, skills and understanding which pupils are expected to have learnt by the end of each key stage.

Attainment targets currently consist of eight level descriptions of increasing difficulty, plus a description for exceptional performance above level 8. Each level description describes the types and range of performance that pupils working at that level should be able to consistently demonstrate. They have been developed on the basis that level 2 is the expected performance of children at the age of 7, level 4 at the age of 11 and level 5/6 at the age of 14. Judgments about pupils' performance at the end of key stages 1, 2 and 3 are based on the level descriptions. General qualifications, such as GCSEs, are the main means of assessing attainment in National Curriculum subjects at key stage 4.

Find out more about how children are assessed and who's who in national assessments.

Last Updated on Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:19 Tags: Ofqual, education, examination regulation, qualifications, assessments