Garnteg Primary School Assessment & Progression

Curriculum for Wales

From September 2022 the Curriculum for Wales will be statutory for all maintained primary schools in Wales.  The Curriculum for Wales will be followed as a continuum of learning for pupils aged 3-16 and has been developed to fulfil four key purposes, with the aim of children in Wales becoming;

• Ambitious, capable learners
• Healthy, confident individuals
• Enterprising, creative contributors
• Ethically, informed citizens

As stated in the Curriculum for Wales assessment guidance, the Curriculum for Wales roll out marks a significant shift in the role of assessment within education, at both a national and a school/setting level. We are clear that the purpose of assessment is to support each individual learner to progress at an appropriate pace, ensuring they are supported and challenged accordingly. To do so, the Curriculum for Wales (CfW), as defined in the Supporting Learner Progression: Assessment Guidance sets out that we assess for three key reasons to:

• support individual learners on an ongoing, day-to-day basis
• identify, capture and reflect on individual learner progress over time
• understand group progress in order to reflect on practice

To enable this approach to assessment, aspects of the current arrangements that do not support the ethos of Curriculum for Wales will be removed and new requirements will be introduced to ensure that supporting learners to make progress is at the heart of assessment going forward. As part of this, practitioners can build on and further develop assessment methods that are already in use to support learners to progress on an ongoing, day-to-day basis, and look to develop new strategies.

Working within the Curriculum for Wales framework, this change recognises that schools/settings are best placed to design the most appropriate curriculum and assessment arrangements for their learners and their contexts. We are moving away from nationally required teacher assessments as part of a nationally prescribed curriculum.

At Garnteg Primary School we have worked together with all stakeholders to design our ‘Climb to Sparkle’ Curriculum including the knowledge, skills and experiences that best support our learners to progress in the ways described in Curriculum for Wales – we will continue to develop assessment arrangements to support each individual learner to progress in relation to our curriculum. The focus will be on identifying where the learner is in their learning, their next steps and the support or challenge needed to move forward in their learning.