Part 3: The St Barnabas Series

Join us on the third part of our journey with St Barnabas Church of England First and Middle School as we explore their use of our termly standardised assessment suites PiRA, PUMA, GAPS and NTS Assessments. St Barnabas also makes full use of MARK, our free online assessment and reporting tool trusted by over 6,000 schools.

Over the past 2 weeks, in Part 1 and Part 2 of the St Barnabas series, we’ve learned all about Stephen Booth’s (St Barnabas’ Acting Head Teacher) experience with PiRA, PUMA and GAPS. We’ve also heard what the pupils themselves have to say about sitting the papers! This week, it’s the turn of Natalie (Year 2 Class Teacher) and Louise (Year 6 Class Teacher) to tell us their thoughts about our new, termly, National Test-style, standardised suite, NTS Assessments.

How would Natalie and Louise describe NTS Assessments?

“NTS Assessments are standardised tests. They monitor the progress of the children and they’re like the real SATs, so you know what the child will get at the end of year.”
“Engaging to our children, very much SATs style and easy to administer.”
“Brilliant resource to use… really good for teachers to be able to monitor (pupil) progress and see what areas they still may be struggling with.”

What did Natalie and Louise think of the maths and reading papers?

“Maths NTS Assessments were very similar to the SATs-style papers that we usually use.”
“The Reading NTS Assessments were very colourful, they were laid out in a way that engaged the children and the children responded really well to the content.”
“Having it set up the way you would a SATs test really does help the children get used to those conditions.”

What was Natalie and Louise’s experience of administering the tests?

“I found it really easy to administer the tests. It gets you prepared and confident as a teacher, so that when you do perform the real thing it will feel smooth.”
“I found the administration of the tests easy. They’re very similar to our normal SATs papers and it was very quick and the children responded really well.”

How did their pupils feel about the papers?

“It was good for them to put everything into practice that they have learned so far. There were some people that struggled towards the end, but that helped me, as a teacher, see what their gaps are and what I need to do to build that perseverance up for the actual tests at the end of the year.”
“I genuinely do hand on heart say that they absolutely love taking the tests and they wanted some more next week. The children found the tests very similar to any of the other test papers they have seen in the past.”
“They responded quickly and were very quick to feed back at the end.”
“They’re preparing you for the real thing and the more you read, the more you’ll know, and the more you’ll grow. The children get so much from doing them.”

Watch this video to hear what else Natalie and Louise from St Barnabas have to say about NTS Assessments.

Keep your eyes open