Our staff use assessment every lesson to check on the knowledge and skills students are learning. This ongoing assessment is vital for ensuring good progress.
Twice a year, teachers provide a summative assessment grade for each student, so that parents and senior staff can understand their attainment. In most subjects students will sit an exam to inform this grade. In practical subjects the teacher will usually also include an element of coursework in the grade.
At KS3, these grades are based on what we would expect most children to know and understand at that point in the course. We define this as “Meeting” age-related expectations. For students who demonstrate more than we would expect, we use the grade “Exceeding” and for those who are not yet meeting age-related expectations we use “Developing”. Each grade is further divided into three, to show how secure the grade is. A “Developing 1” (or “D1”) is close to “Meeting”; an “E3” is above age-related expectations, but only just. We ask teachers to also indicate if they feel each student is generally “on track” (given their prior attainment at KS2) to make expected progress by the end of the year.
At KS4, we report GCSE grades. At both assessment points, the report to parents shows the grade from the recent assessment and the teacher’s Professional Predicted Grade (PPG). This is the grade the teacher believes the student is likely to achieve at the end of the course if they carry on working as they currently are doing. It is broken down into three to show how secure it is. For example, a 4a is a strong grade 4, with a good chance that with further effort the student could move up to a grade 5. A 7b is a secure 7. A 3c is a wobbly grade 3, which could easily drop to a 2.
On all reports, we ask teachers to think carefully about students’ Attitude to Learning (ATL). This is divided into six areas so parents can see if there are problems to resolve in a specific subject or skill area. You can see a full explanation of the ATL criteria below.
All reports are available on Edulink One, where parents can also view up-to-date behaviour and attendance information.