In this section you can access assessment materials for English produced by QCA. Further assessment materials produced by QCA are available from 'QCA links'.

These focuses are based on the national curriculum level descriptions and cover the areas for assessing pupils' work, both in tests and in the classroom, for all key stages. Teachers can use assessment focuses to help them judge pupils' progress on a daily basis.

The assessment focuses are not hierarchical or related to age or ability.

Assessment focuses for reading

The aspects of reading to be assessed are pupils' ability to:

• AF1: use a range of strategies, including accurate decoding of text, to read for meaning
• AF2: understand, describe, select or retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to text
• AF3: deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts
• AF4: identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts, including grammatical and presentational features at text level
• AF5: explain and comment on writers' uses of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level
• AF6: identify and comment on writers' purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader
• AF7: relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts and literary tradition

Assessment focuses for writing

The aspects of writing to be assessed are pupils' ability to:

• AF1: write imaginative, interesting and thoughtful texts
• AF2: produce texts which are appropriate to task, reader and purpose
• AF3: organise and present whole texts effectively, sequencing and structuring information, ideas and events
• AF4: construct paragraphs and use cohesion within and between paragraphs
• AF5: vary sentences for clarity, purpose and effect
• AF6: write with technical accuracy of syntax and punctuation in phrases, clauses and sentences
• AF7: select appropriate and effective vocabulary
• AF8: use correct spelling

To help teachers understand how to use the assessment focuses in primary and secondary, we have produced a series of activities that were circulated at the 2004 Curriculum and Assessment conferences (see 'Downloads').

Assessing pupils' progress in English

Based on the principles of assessment for learning, the APP materials support teachers in generating diagnostic information about pupils' strengths and weaknesses.

The materials can be found on the key stage 3 area of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) Standards website, which you can access from this page. The materials include:

• a handbook for English subject leaders and teachers explaining how to implement APP
• a set of guidelines for assessing pupils' ongoing work using the English assessment focuses
• a standards file that contains examples of pupils' ongoing classroom work. It exemplifies the APP approach and shows national standards in reading and writing
• a bank of short teaching ideas and pupil tasks for reading and writing for years 7, 8 and 9.

The APP model of assessment has been trialled extensively with over 90 schools during the last two years through a research project wit the Secondary National Strategy, funded by the DfES. An evaluation report about this research project, Monitoring pupils' progress in English at key stage 3: Final report on the 2003-5 pilot, is available from the 'Downloads' section.

For further information on the APP project, please email the English team at englishteam@qca.org.uk