The purpose of assessment is to ensure students in each year group understand whether they are making expected progress in a subject and know what they need to do to improve. As subject specialists, each department has its own carefully considered approach to assessment and these are captured in the information on individual subjects below. All teachers are expected to:

• Use formative assessment to provide regular feedback to students so they are clear on how to improve in each lesson and use this information to inform teaching. Where appropriate, they should use summative assessment to make an accurate and informed judgement about students’ progress at a maximum of three points during the academic year.  
• Use a range of questioning techniques to check students’ understanding and to identify and correct any mistakes.  
• Help students to plan, organise and review their work, including responses to summative assessment. Ensure the students know what they need to revise for any assessment or exam and that they know how to revise effectively for this subject and provide regular opportunities to use and develop retrieval strategies. 

There will be up to three points in each year where we assess the students more formally. The results of these assessments will form the basis of what we report to parents and carers, along with an engagement level, a behaviour level and a contribute level. In Years 10 and 11, students will receive a Target Grade based on FFT20 that has been set to reflect that we are a high performing school and that students at SMRT generally do better than similar students in similar schools nationally. Current grades and predicted grades will have fine levels, e.g. in Geography, for example, a student may currently be on a grade 5 (meaning they are a ‘solid’ 5) or they could be on a 5- (meaning they are just about achieving a 5, but they will have to work hard to get it) or they may be on a 5+ (meaning that they could push themselves up to a grade 6 with hard work). Target Grades are given as ‘whole’ grades only.

Each time we these assessments take place, the data is analysed by the School Leadership Team and appropriate interventions are then put in place to support students, either through the Pastoral team (led by Mr Shaw), through the Achievement Interventions team (led by Ms. Cottell), the Learning Support team (led by Mr Thomas-White) or through individual subjects (overseen by Mr Taylor). The provisional key dates for the coming year are below: 
 
Year 10 
Autumn gradesheet - Wed 19 October 2022 
Spring gradesheet - Wed 29 March 2023 
Parent/carers evenings - Mon 8 and Wed 10 May 2023 
Internal exams - Mon 19 Jun to Fri 30 Jun 2023 
Summer gradesheet - Thurs 13 July 2023 

Year 11 
Mock exams - Tue 1 November to Fri 11 November 2022 
Autumn gradesheet - Wed 23 November 2022 
Parent/carers evenings - Tues 6 and Thurs 8 December 2022 
Spring gradesheet – Thu 9 Mar 2023 

Assessment in each Subject 

Click on a subject below to find detailed information about how we measure progress and feedback to students in books, in class and for homework.