Throughout their time at school, children will be assessed informally so that teachers know what children can do well and what they need to learn next or to have more support with.
At certain times, children are also assessed using formal government-set assessments. This page gives you more information about these.
Reception Baseline
Within 6 weeks of starting Reception, teachers are required to assess children using a baseline assessment. The purpose of this is to provide a starting point from which to measure children’s progress between Reception and Year 6. The baseline assessment is a short, interactive and practical assessment of children’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematical skills.
Towards the end of the Reception year, teachers are then required to make a judgement on the progress children have made. They are given an assessment on each area of the curriculum and whether they have reached a “Good Level of Development” (GLD)
Year 1 Phonic Screening Check
Every Year 1 child is assessed whether they can read real and made-up words using phonemes (letter sounds.) Teachers administer the check; in 2024, this will be during the week starting Monday 3rd June. For more information about how we teach reading through phonics, please visit our reading page.
Statutory assessment tests/ tasks (SATS)
Key Stage 1 (Year 2)
These tests are now OPTIONAL. At Hollymount School, we have decided to continue to use them this year to provide teachers with another source of information about how your child’s attainment in reading, writing and maths.
More information can be found in the Government leaflet here.
Key Stage 2 (Year 6)
Children sit SATS at the end of year 6 to assess their learning from across Key Stage 2. Parents are given children’s results in the end of year report. Year 6 are due to sit their SATs week commencing 13th May 2023.
Monday 13th : Punctuation, Grammar and Spelling
Tuesday 14th May: Reading
Wednesday 15th May: Maths Paper 1 and 2
Thursday 16th May: Maths Paper 3
More information can be found in the Government leaflet here.
Year 4 Multiplication Check
Multiplication check measures how well children know their times tables up to 12 x 12. Children sit an online test, which measure their accuracy – it is quite fast, so speedy knowledge recall is really important. In 2023, teachers must administer the test in a 3 week period from Monday 3rd June.