Planning to use APP

Step 1. Your training and preparation

For you to be fully prepared to make APP assessment judgements you need to be:

• trained on how to introduce and support APP
• familiar with the assessment focuses (AFs) and standards files
• clear about what counts as evidence
• prepared to adjust your planning and teaching as necessary to obtain evidence
• clear about ways to fill in the assessment guidelines sheets.

Step 2. Deciding the timing of APP judgements

Your school policy will determine when you should make APP judgements. APP is a process of periodic review of work already done, not a new assessment event. As a basic principle the work reviewed should cover more than one unit and at least one term's progress. This suggests that you will most likely formalise your judgements two or three times a year.

Step 3. Practice in making judgements

In order to make robust judgements in science, mathematics and reading and writing you should follow the appropriate flow chart. Mathematics, reading and writing and science flow charts are available in the article Making judgements in APP

You will find it helpful to work through an example of making judgements using a blank assessment guidelines sheet for a pupil in your class. As you do this, you should refer to a standards file with its completed assessment guidelines sheet to clarify the process.

Please note that the full annotations in the standards files are there to demonstrate the teacher's thinking around each pupil's sample of evidence. You do not need to annotate your own pupils' work in this detail.

Step 4. Using the APP assessment criteria

Once teachers are confident in their use of APP they will be able to use the assessment criteria in the guidelines to make teacher assessment judgements against national curriculum levels about all children in the class – they will be able to use the APP process for all children.