How do Formative Assessments support you to maximise pupil outcomes in Sonar?
Formative assessment data itself is just that, data. It is the knowledge and understanding of how to collate and present the data that offers the potential of educational impact. To truly deliver impact the assessment data also needs to be accurate and consistent at the point of creation and the formative tools in Sonar are designed to support this.
Formative tracking enables teachers to record attainment over a range of curriculum content in order to ensure appropriate coverage and identify any gaps in learning.
High quality formative assessment is also a powerful tool to inform and support teacher summative judgements.
This short video will take you through the process of entering formative data. The notes below will take you through the process in detail.
Notes
To add formative data go to the Assess icon on the left sidebar.
From the Teacher assessments list select Primary Formative, then use the pull down menus to select the year group and, if required, a class. Then, click Load Assessment.
The Choose Subjects page opens and you can select either a single or multiple subject areas by ticking the required selection. Once the selection is complete click Load Objectives.
Curriculum View
The input page opens in the Curriculum View. This has been designed to give a clear view of attainment over the chosen curriculum areas
Each objective appears with a shaded bar beneath. This is there to enter assessments and to show the breakdown of assessments for the selected pupils.
The academic year, assessment time period, subject selection and Band can all be adjusted by using the pull down menus or the View Options.
The curriculum view gives a good overview of assessments for a class of pupils but is designed to be used for groups of pupils working at a similar ability.
The individual pupils can be deselected by unticking next to their names but this is an inefficient method and a better approach is to have saved groups of pupils already saved.
Click the Filters button to access and apply your chosen pupil group.
To record an assessment for the selected pupils click the bar below the text of an objective and a picker will appear.
By clicking the appropriate colour that value will be recorded against the selected pupils for the chosen objective.
On occasion you may want to assess one or more of the displayed pupils at a different level of attainment to the others.
If you click the text of an objective it will be selected.
Now the pupil list to the left of the objectives reflects the individual assessment state for the currently selected statement.
If, for example, you want to assess a statement as Achieved for the majority of the current group but Working Towards for one or two you could click the bar beneath the statement and assess as Achieved for all pupils.
To set one or two pupils as Working Towards you would then click the objective text to select it. The ticks next to the names will become coloured squares, representing their individual assessments. Simply click the square to amend the assessment on an individual basis.
Through this method it should be possible to enter group assessments rapidly, but also get the essential ability to focus on individual pupils without changing the view.
The top bar will display both graphically and by percentages the proportions of objectives achieved. The bar is dynamic and will represent whatever has been selected by the user.
The Breakdown button on the far right will display this information in a tabular form for either an individual objective or all on show.
This breakdown gives a useful gap analysis for the objectives that could be used to inform planning focus for groups of pupils.
Objectives View
This alternate view for formative data entry is called the Objectives View and is accessed through the View Options button.
When selected it opens up on a simple dialogue box which allows users to select their preferred formative input view.
If Objectives View is chosen further display options become available.
Once the choice has been made select Update View and the page will change to a grid format with pupils names across the top and objective statements down the side. (NB these can swapped with the Swap Axis option)
Formative data is recorded for an individual pupil by clicking into the appropriate cell and choosing the required colour.
Bulk Fill for either all displayed pupils or objectives is done by clicking either and choosing the appropriate colour.
The clock symbol in a cell shows that data has been entered previously and by hovering over the clock symbol the previous assessment will be shown.
All entered data is saved automatically. Please be sure to check the save tick is still showing if you are bulk filling as poor internet connection can sometimes hinder saving.