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. These are the marks which will form the basis of what we report to parents and carers.
Summative Grades
At KS3, summative grades should be entered onto SIMS a maximum of three times per year. These grades reflect the GCSE grades 1-9 and are used to indicate the progress that students are making towards the Target Grades that are generated centrally using the FFT20 Target (Fischer Family Trust 20th percentile benchmark) as a starting point. Subject areas might choose any of the following approaches to attributing grades to summative assessments:
1. Set tests and award grades in the appropriate proportion for the year groups corresponding to the proportions of students within each grade suggested by the FFT20 data.
2. Exemplify work at (e.g.) grades 5, 3 and 1 for Y8 to correspond to what should be expected from students at about 10%, 40%, 75% respectively from the top of each year group.
3. Produce standards for each GCSE grade, so long as the proportions roughly match the expected profile based on FFT20.
Whichever approach is taken, grades are always moderated by the Head of Subject and their team.
Progress Grades
When reporting student progress, we use the following coding:
1. Making excellent progress: showing the potential to exceed their targets at GCSE
2. Making good progress: on track to hit their targets for GCSE
3. Making some progress: moving forward in their learning, but more slowly than would be needed to achieve their targets for GCSE / with the potential to make faster progress
4. Making little progress: very likely to fall below targets for GCSE and current work is showing little development from previous assessments
Each time 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).
In addition to the progress data, some reports will contain an engagement level, a behaviour level and a contribute level, depending where they fall in the year.
The provisional key dates for the coming year are below:
Year 7
Autumn gradesheet Wed 2 November 2022
Parent/carers evenings Mon 14 and Wed 16 November 2022
Spring gradesheet Tues 7 March 2023
Summer gradesheet Tues 4 July 2023
Year 8
Autumn gradesheet Wed 7 December 2022
Spring gradesheet Tues 14 March 2023
Parent/carers evenings Tues 25 and Thurs 27 April 2023
Summer gradesheet Tues 11 July 2023
Year 9
Autumn gradesheet Wed 12 October 2022
Spring gradesheet Tues 31 January 2023
Parent/carers evenings Mon 6 and Wed 8 February 2023
Summer gradesheet Wed 24 May 2023
Outside of these dates, we welcome contact from parents and carers. If you are concerned about your child's progress in a particular subject you should contact the relevant subject teacher in the first instance. If your concerns are across a range of subjects you should contact their form tutor.
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.
