Following the end of National Curriculum levels, we introduced a new assessment system for Years 7-9. Having reviewed our assessment practice, we have decided to make some adjustments to our system to further enhance the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, so that our students make outstanding progress and have a strong foundation for achieving success at GCSE. When embedded, the system will:
- be aspirational and challenging while giving students a sense of achievement
- provide a precise and robust measure of student progress and attainment
- make it clear to students, the knowledge, understanding and skills that they have mastered and the next steps they need to make in their learning
- give reliable information to parents about how their child is performing
- be coherent with the reformed GCSEs
Sidcot’s Grades 9-1 system at Key Stage 3
The new Sidcot Key Stage 3 assessment system is based on a 9 (highest) to 1 (lowest) grade scale.
The knowledge, understanding and skills needed for each grade have been set so that the grade a student is working at during Key Stage 3 broadly reflects the standard we would expect a student to be at, in order to progress and achieve the same grade at GCSE.
For example, if a student achieves a grade 5 for a particular subject in Year 9 it puts them on track for achieving broadly a grade 5 in the same subject at GCSE. However, it is important to emphasise that a student’s rate of progress often varies over time and may differ between subjects. Therefore, while the grades a student achieves during Key Stage 3 may be an indicator of possible achievement at GCSE they are not the school’s prediction of a student’s GCSE outcomes
The diagram above shows how the 9-1 grade system works from Year 7 to Year 9. Unlike the old National Curriculum levels, the standards for each grade get progressively harder from one year to the next during Key Stage 3. This means that a student is making:
- good progress if they achieve the same grade in Years 7, 8 and 9 because the standard needed to achieve that grade gets progressively more challenging
- rapid progress if the grade they achieve increases in Years 7, 8 and 9
- insufficient progress if the grade they achieve falls during Key Stage 3.
KS3 Assessment Frameworks
Each subject has a KS3 Assessment Framework which describes the standard of each grade for different assessment objectives.
An assessment objective is a key strand of learning that is taught and assessed in a subject. These have been designed to make our assessment at Key Stage 3 coherent with how students will be assessed at GCSE.
Assessment Frameworks are used in everyday lessons, especially during assessments, to make it clear to students the grade they are working at and the next steps they need to take in their learning.
Types of Assessment
Subjects assess and grade students throughout the year, using a combination of assessments that best suits that subject. This may include formal end of topic tests under exam conditions, project-based assessments where students work in lessons and at home and other forms of assessment such as group presentations.
There are formal annual exams in the Summer Term in which the content covered thus far in Key Stage 3 is assessed under exam conditions. Each exam period lasts for a week and students receive an exam timetable which shows when each subject exam takes place.
Reporting
Three reports are published each year which contain a current 9-1 grade for each subject*, as well as information about a student’s learning attributes including their classwork and homework effort.
A student’s effort will be rated using the descriptors provided, (on the right-hand side) of the diagram above.
For example, if a teacher judges that a student has not quite demonstrated the expected amount of effort over the time covered by the report, then the student’s effort will be recorded as ‘Working towards’. Conversely, for a student whose effort is just above the amount expected, their effort will be reported as ‘Exceeding’.
The progress which a student is making is monitored by teachers, tutors and Heads of Year.
*The first Year 7 monitoring report, published early in the academic year will not include current grades.