B Squared

B Squared is a means of assessing children’s performance within the P levels.

Special and mainstream schools working with children who have significant learning difficulties use the P levels as a means of recording progress. The difficulty for teachers is to establish progress within these fairly broad bands of achievement.

B Squared is a computer program that assesses pupils’ progress and achievements. It uses a series of statements that contribute to an overall score, recorded as a percentage of a P level achieved. It is recorded by subject area, with automatic infill of statements common to more than one subject. The unequal attainments in different subjects, typical of children with particular areas of difficulty such as communication or physical impairment, can be accommodated.

The school will need to determine what percentage increase represents good progress for each pupil.

There are options for recording each assessment statement:

• Encountered – a pupil is encountering a stimulus but responds only passively, without engaging.
• Engagement – a pupil shows some signs of involvement though their responses are inconsistent.
• Gaining skills and understanding – a pupil starts to produce a more consistent response and is more consistently engaged.
• Mastered – a pupil shows mainly consistent responses.
• Confirmed – a pupil shows consistent responses.

Children with severe physical or visual impairments

A number of P level assessment statements depend upon physical or visual ability. 

For example English P level 2(i) contains the statements:

• Watches person directly in line of vision
• Attempts to copy facial expression

This is not relevant for a visually impaired child.

An assessment can therefore be recorded as not applicable to the assessment, meaning the child cannot ever achieve this level and it should be discounted from the score.