“A new teacher-led commission will be set up to help primary schools as they move away from the ‘vague and imprecise’ system of levels for assessment”

School Reform Minister Nick Gibb announced 25 February 2015

….and TASC Software are ready

 

With over 25 years’ experience in Education, meeting the needs of Schools and taking into consideration Government led organisation requirements, our Grading and Assessment feature in PARS Connect has offered a solution to Schools tracking pupil performance, with or without levels for many years.

Teachers and Schools should have the freedom to develop formative assessment systems that best fit the needs of their pupils. Level descriptors were only ever intended to be used to sum up a pupil’s attainment and progress however some schools had started to use them as a form of ongoing assessment. To enable Schools to manage this efficiently, they need the correct software…..

PARS Connect allows you this versatility. Enables teachers to enter grades easily (click here for details), simple charts for teachers identifying pupil below, at or on target. Easy to read, color coded and meaningful bespoke reports for parents…are just some of the benefits of our assessment feature.

If your School uses SIMS Assessment Manager; data is read-write with PARS Connect allowing teachers to access data from home also via any device; mobile, laptop, iPad, Touchpad.

Taking the National Curriculum Programmes of Study “KS4 Science” into consideration, pupils should be taught to: (examples)

• understand that scientific methods and theories develop as earlier explanations are modified to take account of new evidence and ideas, together with the importance of publishing results and peer review ask questions and develop a line of enquiry based on observations of the real world, alongside prior knowledge and experience
• make and record observations and measurements using a range of methods for different investigations; and evaluate the reliability of methods and suggest possible improvements

As a teacher you may have a classroom quiz and want to record how many questions  the pupil answered correctly marking 1-25. You may want to comment on the pupils voice and specific contribution made in class today. A practical lesson may require a logging of specific measurements for an ongoing-project. Even a simple yes/no result recorded for information only.

From this data logged, a teacher can identify areas which may require improvement or further intervention at an early stage. Extra homework/revision required by individual pupils, the teacher may need to re-assess their teaching method if results not as expected for the whole class, extra after School help for pupils….the aim: Pupils to achieve their potential and pass exams with great results! All can be logged in PARS Connect

PARS Connect will enable teachers to record and review all this information along with the standard termly or end of year results, for example: KS Levels, FFT, Attainment 8, EBACC. example of our grade analysis can be found here

It is also very important that parents can understand their child’s assessment information when presented. Without meaningful and easy-to-read reports, this can be a struggle for parents to see exactly how their son or daughter is progressing. I have seen many complicated School reports in my years at TASC!

To aid Schools in presenting to parents, we offer a free service to design bespoke reports for you. Your design, your colours, your calculations, your ideas… easy to read and understand.

Click for PARS Connect report examples

….and to complete the circle….your School can make these reports available to parents online via our INSIGHT Parental Engagement Software . Whether progressive reports, end of year, interim. Save money printing all the reports and only print for parents who wish to have a hard-copy. You can also check and see which parents have looked at the reports!

 

www.tascsoftware.co.uk

 

Prepared by Jenny Urey