Assessment Policy

Background to assessment policy

At present, there is no statutory assessment strategy for English as an Additional Language. Historically, assessment was based on Hilary Hester's Four Stages of Language Acquisition, and most LEAs used these as the basis for their documentation. Berkshire (including Windsor and Maidenhead) used these as SMART forms.

QCA introduced a development from Hilary Hester, called a Language In Common. With this strategy, pupils are assessed on 4 Steps which are loosely related to National Curriculum Levels. Thus, Step 1 = early W, Step 2 = W, Step 3 = early 1, Step 4 = sound 1. Thereafter, children are assessed on National Curriculum levels.

A discussion with the lead Ofsted Inspector during the successful LEA inspection in June followed the pros and cons of both types of assessment and agreed the need to review strategy from the Hilary Hester format to one which was useful for mainstream teachers and could directly relate to National Curriculum assessment.

As a result, the EMA Service revised their assessment strategy, by attending training conferences, spending inset days etc. A core principle was that second language acquisition features in pupil's learning beyond Level 1, and many pupils need support to move them through higher levels, taking into consideration idiomatic language, implicit meanings, use of genre and so forth, more than a monolingual child. Thus we used the NASSEA model which extends the 4 Steps into 7 steps, and directly links those Steps into the higher NC Levels. Thus:

Step 1 = W
Step 2 = W
Step 3 = 1
Step 4 = 1
Step 5C = 2
Step 5B = 3
Step 5A = 4
Step 6 = 5
Step 7 = 6 or fluency

These matches are approximate. NASSEA had one block for Step 5, but we broke this down into 5C, 5B, 5A as we believed the range was too wide.

After agreeing the Step levels, we took guidance form Hilary Hester, Language in Common, NASSEA and National Literacy Strategy and evolved the acquisition features which were appropriate for each step. These we have then compiled to give guidance for teaching and learning targets for each Step in Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. They are used to assess pupil's levels, to provide appropriate objectives and to monitor progress.

"The audits of bi-lingual pupils' abilities each September not only created benchmarks for improvement, but enabled the LEA and schools to target resources appropriately to support those pupils. The downstream evaluations diagnosed shortcomings that can, importantly, be addressed by, for example, further support for oracy and writing skills." Ofsted Thematic Inspection 2004.

Copies of EMAS Assessment Policy are available on request from our centre.

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