In 2014 we worked through the theology and key concepts for each RE strand. Bearing these in mind the staff came up with key ideas which we could keep constant and develop through each child’s journey at St Joseph’s school. The need for this was based on the high number of children who enter our school at different levels, many missing out on junior and middle teaching in RE. The concepts had to be ones which would be accessible to both 5 and 13 year olds, at different stages of RE knowledge and at different stages in their faith journeys.
We proposed to “test” these concepts over three years. We hoped that keeping these concepts at the forefront supported by the strand teaching at each level, we would see a deepening of understanding of these concepts as children move through the school. 2015 is our third year of using the SOLO thinking taxonomy in RE to promote and assess depth of thinking and we are using this to guide our assessment.
These are our Second comparative results for the Holy Spirit strand. As we are tracking over three years we are tracking the year 1-6 cohorts of 2014:
In most year groups the 2015 total is above the 2014 total which shows that groups of children have improved their understanding over time. The baseline data is the results of the year group that were two years ahead of the year group in 2014. Without intervention, this would be the expected achievement level for that group in two years time. Our results at this stage show that most groups have already exceeded their two year projection, over one year.
Our first comparisons show two things:
- That it looks as if children’s understanding of the key ideas have increased over two years of teaching the key ideas, when compared with the class which was two years ahead of them in 2014. Over two years they have already exceeded the achievement we would be hoping to have seen in three years. It would seem that returning and reinforcing the key ideas has helped children to deepen their understanding.
2) The need to moderate our marking. Next time we should either swap some papers between teachers to mark, or teachers select papers which appear average and share them with other teachers for moderation. Or both of these methods. Making OTJ's in our Hubs will work and also supporting Beginning Teachers new to the programme
FOR TEACHERS:
Specific assessment information is available at:
Holy Spirit 2015 assessment
and the year level breakdown of comparisons from 2014 is at: Comparison 2014 to 2015
