Continuous teacher assessment of children’s work takes place across the curriculum throughout the key stages but particularly in the core subjects. Assessment is used to determine levels of previous understanding before new work is taught. It also helps teachers to target individuals or groups of children for additional support, intervention strategies or to extend children’s learning.

Parents will be provided with teacher-assessed levels in the core subjects at the end of each school year in a written report.

Nationally standardised assessment takes place at the end of each Key Stage (Years 2 & 6) in English and maths. Parents are notified of the results of these assessments towards the end of the Summer Term.

Learning at home can prove an additional benefit to school-based education. Homework gives children the opportunity to practise at home the tasks covered in class. It also helps them become confident and independent in their learning, which will help throughout their time at school and in adult life.

Regular reading at home, especially reading with parents, is the most important type of homework and is actively encouraged.

Class teachers ensure that the homework demands on pupils are manageable and that activities are related to work your child is doing at school. Homework will not always be written work.

For young children it will largely be: reading with parents or carers; practising spellings and playing informal games to revisit mathematical or other skills.

Older children may be asked to carry out research to introduce a topic, consolidation / practising skills, generating ideas / designs, revising areas or using and applying concepts. This will be in different forms: reading; learning times tables or other mathematical facts; preparing a presentation to the class; finding out information; making something or trying out a simple scientific experiment etc.

In order to enhance children’s experience of school we are able to provide a range of activities to support the curriculum.

Visits to museums, historic houses, places of interest, places of worship, other schools and colleges, the local village, other villages and towns, waterways, railways, education centres, cinema etc.

Visitors in school for theatre productions, musical events, safety days, health days, religious festival celebrations, reading and poetry sessions etc.

School Journeys in Year 4 and Year 6 to outward bounds centres.

Should your child be identified as having a special educational need or disability we will work closely with other support agencies to plan the best possible ways of meeting that need. Longthorpe has close, well-established links with Learning Support Services, Pupil Support, Psychology Services, Medical Support Services and SEN Services.

Children identified as having an outstanding ability are supported to develop this ability. We identify two categories of children with outstanding ability:

Gifted children are those who are outstandingly talented in certain areas;
High Ability children are those who demonstrate high levels of attainment across the curriculum.

Teachers ensure that work is carefully differentiated to provide appropriate challenge. We work closely with Peterborough secondary schools to provide quality learning experiences, challenge days and workshops for more able pupils.

Whenever we identify outstanding sporting, physical, musical or creative ability, we will provide you with information about local sports clubs or coaching arrangements outside the school system, in order to provide access to higher levels of coaching and to enable your child’s talent to flourish.

Children with English as an additional language are supported in school in a variety of ways including in-class support provided by Teaching Assistants and Bi-lingual Assistants. Development of language is enhanced through ‘Talking Partners’, use of visual resources, development of vocabulary, pre-learning and re-visiting areas of learning, prompts, scaffolded / demonstrated language and use of writing frames.