National Curriculum Changes The first few slides in this - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

National Curriculum Changes

The first few slides in this presentation will inform you of the changes to the curriculum in the core areas. There have been many more changes in other subjects and these can easily be checked by doing a google search for National Curriculum 2014 changes. Parts of this document I have taken from the web site The School Run which is a good starting pint for up-to-date information. The link is at the bottom of the page. The new curriculum was introduced in September 2014 for all year groups except for Years 2 and 6 who continued with the old curriculum for that year. This year will see the introduction of new tests for pupils and I give example of these. There is a link if you want to check the whole package. This year also sees the end of National Curriculum levels. This means every school can use their own way of measuring progress and attainment. Our own conversion chart from levels to a new points based system is at the end. At the end of Year 6 you will be given a raw score for your child’s achievement with 100 being the average rather like in a standardised score. Our main aim has been to ensure pupils remain confident in their learning which is why we have gone for a system which we believe enables pupils to see the progress they are making so they can see their improvement. In evitable this presentation will give only an indication of the changes. If you have a question please feel to ask me when you see me but I am afraid I won’t be able to do this via email due to time constraints. http://www.theschoolrun.com/primary-national-curriculum-2014

English changes

• Stronger emphasis on vocabulary development, grammar,

punctuation and spelling (for example, the use of commas and apostrophes will be taught in KS1)

• Handwriting is expected to be fluent, legible and speedy
• Spoken English has a greater emphasis, with children to be

taught debating and presenting skills

Maths changes

• Five-year-olds learn to count up to 100 (compared to 20

under the old curriculum) and learn number bonds to 20 (up to 10 in the past)

• Simple fractions (1/4 and 1/2) are taught from KS1, and by

the end of primary school, children should be able to convert decimal fractions to simple fractions (e.g. 0.375 = 3/8)

• By the age of nine, children are expected to know times

tables up to 12x12 (10x10 by the end of primary school under the old curriculum)

• Calculators are not to be used at all in tests to

encourage mental arithmetic

Science

• Strong focus on scientific knowledge and language,

rather than understanding the nature and methods of science in abstract terms

• Evolution taught in primary schools for the first time
• Non-core subjects like caring for animals have been

replaced by topics like the human circulatory system

Will the 2014 primary curriculum involve any new tests? The Department for Education has also overhauled the format and content of SATs taken in Year 2 and Year 6 to reflect the new curriculum. These will be taken for the first time in May 2016. You can check out some example papers on the DfE's website. There will also be a new grading system, replacing the previous national curriculum levels.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-test-frameworks

Key Stage 1 Tests

The questions in the English reading tests will be linked to a specific area of the national curriculum. These areas are listed in the test frameworks. Tests could include age-appropriate fiction, non-fiction and poetry from a variety of origins and traditions, covering, over time, a wide range of text types, forms and purposes. The final texts in the test booklets will be more demanding than current texts for both key stage 1 and key stage 2. Questions written for the reading test will clearly depend on the texts that are selected.

There is a focus on comprehension in the new national curriculum and there will therefore be a higher percentage of comprehension questions in the new assessments. The key stage 1 test will consist of two test components: Paper 1: this paper combines texts and questions. This will also include a list of useful words and some practice questions for teachers to introduce the contexts and question types to the pupils. Paper 2: the reading booklet and answer booklet are separate in this

• paper. Both reading papers will contain a mixture of fiction and non-

fiction texts.

The key stage 1 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test is designed to assess grammar, punctuation, language strategies, handwriting and spelling. Language strategies refer to those parts of the content domain that relate to words and word building, such as the use of prefixes and suffixes.

The test will consist of three components. Paper 1: a short written task based on a stimulus and prompt. This component is designed to assess sentence structure and sentence grammar, punctuation and

• handwriting. The task will be introduced by the teacher. It will involve some teacher-led
• discussion. Each task will be accompanied by guidance on how to conduct the teacher-

led introduction. This will be task specific as some tasks may need more teacher-led discussion than others. Paper 2: made up of two sections. The first section will be a set of contextual, or themed, questions. The questions may be presented in a variety of ways, as indicated by the following sample questions. For example, the questions may take pupils through a story, or pupils may be presented with a block of text and associated questions. The second section will be a set of short answer, stand-alone questions. Both the contextual and short answer sections will use a variety of question types, which will reflect the range of the cognitive demand scales. Paper 3: a spelling task. This will use pictures and/or dictated sentences as prompts.

The key stage 1 mathematics test will consist of two components. Paper 1: an arithmetic paper. This will comprise of a practice question and a number of questions which will be linked to national curriculum areas such as number, calculations and fractions. Paper 2: assesses pupils’ ability to apply mathematics to problems and to reason. The test will contain a mixture of contextualised and context-free questions, and real life and abstract problems. Language will be appropriate to key stage 1; word length will be kept to a minimum for accessibility reasons.

In the summer term of 2016, children in Year 2 and Year 6 will be the first to take the new SATs

• papers. These tests in English and maths will reflect the new national curriculum, and are intended to

be more “rigorous”. There will also be a completely new marking scheme to replace the existing national curriculum levels. At the end of Year 6, children will sit tests in:

• Reading
• Maths
• Spelling, punctuation and grammar

These tests will be both set and marked externally, and the results will be used to measure the school’s performance (for example, through reporting to Ofsted and published league tables). Your child’s marks will be used in conjunction with teacher assessment to give a broader picture of their attainment.

Changes to KS2 SATs in 2016: what parents need to know

Key Stage 2 Reading

The reading test will be a single paper with questions based on three passages of text. Your child will have one hour, including reading time, to complete the test. There will be a selection of question types, including:

• Ranking/ordering, e.g. ‘Number the events below to show the order in which they

happen in the story’

• Labelling, e.g. ‘Label the text to show the title of the story’
• Find and copy, e.g. ‘Find and copy one word that suggests what the weather is like in

the story’

• Short constructed response, e.g. ‘What does the bear eat?’
• Open-ended response, e.g. ‘Look at the sentence that begins Once upon a time. How

does the writer increase the tension throughout this paragraph? Explain fully, referring to the text in your answer.’

The test will last for one hour, to include reading time, and will consist of a selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts, with an accompanying answer booklet. Questions will be roughly in order of difficulty. The paper will be scored out of 50 with final raw scores being converted into a scaled score, with 100 representing the expected standard. There will be no extension (i.e. Level 6 equivalent) paper.

Key Stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test

The grammar, punctuation and spelling test will consist of two parts: a grammar and punctuation paper requiring short answers, lasting 45 minutes, and an aural spelling test of 20 words, lasting around 15 minutes. The grammar and punctuation test will include two sub-types of questions:

• Selected response, e.g. ‘Identify the adjectives in the sentence below’
• Constructed response, e.g. ‘Correct/complete/rewrite the sentence

below,’ or, ‘The sentence below has an apostrophe missing. Explain why it needs an apostrophe.’

The structure of the papers will be broadly similar to those previously used: One paper of 45-minute duration will assess punctuation and grammar (50 marks) through short answer questions, while a second test will assess spelling (20 marks). The spelling test will be read to pupils, with each spelling contained in a contextualised sentence as has been the case since 2013. As with reading, overall marks out of 70 will be converted to a scaled score, with 100 representing the expected standard.

Key Stage 2 Maths

Children will sit three papers in maths:

• Paper 1: arithmetic, 30 minutes
• Papers 2 and 3: reasoning, 40 minutes per paper

Paper 1 will consist of fixed response questions, where children have to give the correct answer to calculations, including long multiplication and division. Papers 2 and 3 will involve a number of question types, including:

• Multiple choice
• True or false
• Constrained questions, e.g. giving the answer to a calculation, drawing a shape or

completing a table or chart

• Less constrained questions, where children will have to explain their approach for solving

a problem

The former mental mathematics paper is to be replaced by a 30-minute arithmetic paper, which assesses content from the number domain only. (The framework document (p28) states that mental maths skills cannot be directly assessed in a paper-based test because the pupil’s responses only can be marked and do not show the method used, or how quickly they answered the question.) This new paper will consist largely of one-mark questions using context-free

• calculations. There will be some 2-mark questions for long multiplication

and long division calculations. In two-mark questions, it will only be possible to obtain a single mark for a wrong answer derived from a correct method when using the intended standard method. There are 30 marks for this paper, representing 27% of the total test score.

There will be a further two test papers, each lasting 40 minutes and containing 40 marks. These will assess fluency, reasoning and problem solving, in a manner similar to the current tests. Up to half of the questions will be provided within a context. There will be no calculator paper (and calculators cannot be used in the tests), and no extension paper. Formulae will be provided where required (apart from the area and volume of a shape). As with other tests, raw scores will be converted to a scaled score, with 100 representing the expected standard.

Key Stage 2 Science

Not all children in Year 6 will take science SATs. However, a number of schools will be required to take part in science sampling: a test administered to a selected sample of children thought to be representative of the population as a

• whole. (Monday 6 to Friday 17 June is the science sampling test period in which

your child might sit the tests.) For those who are selected, there will be three papers: Biology: 25 minutes, 22 marks Chemistry: 25 minutes, 22 marks Physics: 25 minutes, 22 marks

Biology: ‘Describe the differences in the life cycle of an amphibian and a mammal’ Chemistry: ‘Group a list of materials according to whether they are solid, liquid or gas’ Physics: ‘Predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, based on where the poles are facing’

How will Key Stage 2 SATs be marked?

The previous National Curriculum levels have been scrapped, and instead children will be given scaled scores. You will be given your child’s raw score (the actual number of marks they get), alongside their scaled score and whether they have reached the national average. The score needed to reach the national average has yet to be announced.

Transferring of Levels

We have created a new levelling system to replace the old National Curriculum levels All schools are able to replace the old system with one of their own. We have also purchased different test resources to replace the old national curriculum tests and assessment materials It is not possible to do a straight transfer of the new curriculum to old levels On the next slide is an example of a new system of measuring achievement and

• progress. We have not gone for this approach as some children will inevitably be told

every year the same information which we believe creates no desire in the child to

• develop. Instead we are using the number system on the slide after that.

No system is perfect. What is most important is that your child has confidence in their learning, enjoys coming to school and does their best with the challenges we set them. For this to happen we need to ensure the challenge is appropriate. This is no different to what we would do irrespective of the stated curriculum. You cannot achieve what you are not skilled to do. Just because a government says something should be the average for an age does not automatically make that true or automatically make pupils more “intelligent” overnight because you expect more

• f them sooner.

What really makes the difference is the attitude we as educators and as parents have towards our children; the encouragement we give them to become the best they can be; and to ultimately become adults, both positive and ready for the wider world and to embrace the changes and challenges they will face. These, I believe, are the things that are important and we will continue in

• ur aim to set appropriate challenge for your child in a secure and supportive environment.

I know I speak for all the staff when I say how much we appreciate your support in the school and in the development of everyone's child in our community.