Can we use pre-key stage standards to track the progress of pupils with SEND?
Updated
At Insight, we often hear from schools asking if they can use pre-key stage standards to track pupil progress. Often, they want to add the standards to their existing Main Assessment mark scheme, and have them broken down into subdivisions - emerging, developing, secure for example; or -/=/+. Insight is a highly flexible system and we always aim to accommodate schools' needs, but there are a few things to consider when it comes to using pre-key stage standards in this way.
Summary
Adding PKS in theory works and looks like a convenient solution to a thorny problem. But it's not without issues:
- If you include PKS bands in a mark scheme with with Point in Time Assessment (PITA) bands (On track, Above, etc) this introduces inconsistencies into the model for 'expected progress'. Most pupils are expected to stay in the same band, while those on PKS bands are probably expected to move up bands.
- PKS standards aren't meant for in-year relative assessment, they are really intended for use at the end of key stages 1 and 2 where they sit alongside the mainstream assessment frameworks and expected standards.
- If a pupil is in Y6 and working in Y3 content, then there isn't a PKS band that will fit.
Further Detail
First, we can't use pre-key stage bands to measure pupil progress. The standards are not linked to specific points in time and there is no expected rate of progress through them. It might be anticpated that one pupil will progress by one pre-key stage standard between key stages 1 and 2. Meanwhile, we might expect another child, starting from the same pre-key stage standard at KS1, to attempt the tests at KS2. When it comes to SEND, progress is an individual concept and it was assuming otherwise that ultimately contributed to the demise of p-scales: they came to be seen (by some) as a linear progression measure. As with levels, that was not the intention when they were introduced.
The next issue is subdividing the standards. The pre-key stage frameworks make no provision for this - there is no official definition of 'PK5 Emerging', for example. Schools are evidently coming up with their own definitions, and that's fine if it's useful, but the criteria for each subdivision will obviously not be universal and therefore will not be transferable between schools. The bigger concern is that the purpose of these subdivided pre-key stage standards is to establish a progress measure, which brings us back to the points raised above.
Putting these issues to one side, let's imagine we go ahead and add pre-key stage standards to the school's existing main assessment mark scheme i.e. The list that the teacher selects from when recording their assessments each term. If your school uses a PITA approach, we might start with a list that looks something like this:
- Below
- Working Towards
- Expected
- Greater Depth
Often, the Below band is seen as too broad and, understandably, it is felt that more detail is required. Having added the pre-key stage standards, we now have a list with the following options:
- PKS1 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS2 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS3 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS4 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS5 (pre-key stage 2, broadly WTS at KS1)
- PKS6 (Pre-key stage 2, broadly EXS at KS1)
- Working Towards
- Expected
- Greater Depth
Note that PKS1-6 replaces the Below band we had previously. This seems logical but problems soon start to arise. Let's imagine we have a pupil in Y6 who is working within the Y3 curriculum. This pupil, despite being three years below their peers, cannot be recorded as pre-key stage. However, a year 3 pupil working in the year 2 curriculum could be classified as PKS6. A system in which a pupil working three years below is recorded as working towards, whilst a pupil that is just one year below is recorded as pre-key stage, will soon start to give a disjointed picture. Schools have attempted to solve this by introducing additional below bands to accommodate those 'in between' cases (e.g. Below -1, Below-2), to be used where a pupil is below but not pre-key stage. Unsurprisingly, this can get extremely messy.
PKS5 and PKS6 are particularly problematic when used in this way because they effectively sit in the middle rather than at the bottom depending on which year group we are focussing on. We could therefore remove them and restrict our list as follows:
- PKS1 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS2 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS3 (pre-key stage 1)
- PKS4 (pre-key stage 1)
- Working Towards
- Expected
- Greater Depth
We no longer have those problematic PKS5 and PKS6 bands, but the problems persist. A pupil in Y6 working in the Y1 curriculum - five years below - will not have an applicable pre-key stage standard, but a pupil in Y1 working in foundation stage - one year below - would. That Working Towards band - originally intended to identify those pupils accessing the age-appropriate curriculum but requiring a lot of support - is doing a lot of work here. We could introduce a Below band between Working Towards and PKS4 to cope with such cases but, again, that is going to end up covering all pupils working below age-related expectations but above the standards of the pre-key stage. Not that different from what we started with.
The issue here is that we are attempting to combine a relative assessment (i.e. PITA) model with fixed assessment descriptors (i.e. Pre-key stage standards). The assessment bands schools commonly use to track pupils' progress - e.g. working towards, expected, greater depth - are relative to what is being taught and the criteria constantly change as the pupil progresses through the curriculum. This is not the case for pre-key stage standards, which are fixed and defined by a published framework and are only really intended for use at the end of key stages 1 and 2 where they sit alongside the mainstream assessment frameworks and expected standards.
For those schools using a steps-based model to track pupil progress - i.e. a flightpath or gradient that pupils follow, usually involving a step per term - attempting to incorporate pre-key stage standards into such a mark scheme is even more problematic. Because each step is linked to a specific term - e.g. Y2E relates to autumn of year 2 and Y4S relates to summer of Y4 - the same concept would have to be applied to the pre-key stage standards in order to make them fit. This means linking each standard (or subdivision of the standards) to a year and term, which is completely out of kilter with the intentions of the assessment. Pupils are expected to be at a specific standard at a given point in time.
So, to return to the original question - can we use pre-key stage standards to track the progress of pupils with SEND? - the answer is: not easily. We can certainly add them to your main assessment mark scheme but the points raised above are worthy of consideration. An alternative is to continue to record such pupils as Below in the main assessment - which is adequate for broad reporting purposes such as to governors - and to record other assessment data alongside. Such data might include:
- Reading ages (e.g. from YARC etc)
- Standardised scores
- Scaled scores
- Phonics phases
- Book bands
- Other types of SEND-specific data (PIVATS, B squared)
You could also record the pre-key stage standard as a separate assessment, which would get around the compatibility issues described in this article.
Further Reading
For more on how to look at data on this kind of approach, see our SENCo's Guide to Insight.
For more on alternative approaches, see Showing progress for pupils working below on the PITA model.
