Baseline assessment and assessment system   

Baseline assessments will be carried out by appropriate member/s of the team. The purpose is to help staff acquire a thorough understanding of each learner’s particular abilities, skills, understanding and learning support needs, including how the SEMH and/or ASC or other SEND needs impact on the individual learner.   

Identifying each learner’s specific learning needs then informs the development of their personalised curriculum plan and priorities for learning and intervention. This assessment period also provides initial baseline measures against which to track and monitor future progress.    

Assessment is not an end in itself, but we value its main purpose to support teaching and learning by identifying what learners already know and can do and what their next steps should be. Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning and will be evident in every lesson and learning opportunity at school. For specialist settings, there are challenges with regards to assessment approaches. For example, the progress of learners with SEMH and/or ASC is often not linear, and skills may not be generalized spontaneously between different environments or settings, this can be related to their difficulties or to there being gaps in learning. Many formal or standardised assessments also rely on cooperation and engagement of the young person, which may, at times be difficult for young people with SEMH and/or ASC.    

Methods of assessment   

The ‘What is good practice in autism education’ report (2011) commissioned by the Autism Education Trust identified that good autism practice involves the use of multiple assessment tools and methods including the use of formal and informal assessment and the capture of quantitative and qualitative data to assess progress across a range of areas important to a young person with ASC such as:    

• academic skills and progress through the National Curriculum   

• emotional regulation   

• social skills   

• communication   

• daily living   

• independence skills   

• learning skills