Following a positive response in the consultation, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is incorporating the P scales into the national curriculum. See the P scales consultation report on the right-hand side of this page for further details.
This means that schools must now provide data on pupils' performance against the P scales.
The P level attainment targets apply in relation to pupils, aged 5-14, with Special Educational Needs who are working below level 1 of the national curriculum.
The document Performance - P level - attainment targets sets out the P scales for all national curriculum subjects and Religious Education. The scale for PSHE and Citizenship relates to both statutory citizenship and non-statutory personal wellbeing.
For detailed guidance on how to use and moderate the P scales please see the QCA DVD Using the P scales. This is available from the QCA orderline and contains examples of P scale assessments in the core subjects.
The materials Planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties are also a useful support. These can be accessed from the Planning the curriculum page - see link on right-hand side of this page.
From summer 2005 the DFES will invite schools to report the attainment of any child with special educational needs working below national curriculum level 1 as a P level. The NAA have developed a Guide to P scale national data collection.
Using the P scales gives advice on using and moderating the P scales from levels P4-P8 in English, mathematics and science. It can be ordered from the QCA orderline. The order number is QCA/05/1589 (ISBN: 1-85838-719-1). Distribution of these orders will take place at the end of May.
Schools and LEAs are entitled to one free copy.
From week ending Friday 13 May, some sections of the guidance from Using the P scales can be downloaded from this area of the website. These will include Collecting Evidence, Making Best Fit Judgements and Moderation.
Detailed guidance for schools on how to submit P scales data is available on the DfES teachernet website.
The P scales are assessment criteria for progress below level one in the national curriculum programmes of study. These programmes are designed for pupils aged 5-16. They were developed to support target setting through the use of summative assessment to be used at the end of key stages and, for those pupils making more rapid progress, possibly once a year. Schools may like to note that at this level of development pupils are likely to need support and prompting with many tasks. This should not in itself mean that the P level is not awarded for that activity.
The P scales that can be accessed from this page replace the version of the P-scales which can be found in Supporting the target setting process (Out of print) and discussed in Planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties (see 'Planning the curriculum', in the left-hand menu).
QCA, in conjunction with the DfES, has made minor revisions to the P scales. Practitioners requested more age-appropriate examples for secondary pupils, more up-to-date examples of ICT and some clarification of the level descriptors from P4 to P8. We have:
QCA would like to thank SENJIT at the Institute of Education, University of London who were our contractors in the development of this project and the 300+ practitioners who sent us comments and attended the regional consultations.
Planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties QCA guidance on the national curriculum for all those who work with pupils with learning difficulties (see ‘Planning the curriculum’ in the left-hand menu).
Supporting school improvement: emotional and behavioural development Guidance on setting improvement targets for pupils (available from QCA publications for £3; downloadable from this page).
Data collection and the analysis of P scale assessment data: QCA organises annual data collection and the analysis of P scale assessment data in order to establish a national picture of the performance of pupils working significantly below age-related expectations and to prepare analyses from the resulting dataset to support school self-evaluation and the setting of school improvement targets.