Assessment and Reporting

Through our curriculum and assessment practices, we aim to build a love of learning and a drive for success, with students believing there is no limit to what they can achieve when they aspire high and are hard-working, confident learners with real self-belief.

To help support this, we are introducing a new system of assessment and reporting from September 2022. Your child will find that there are more short tests and activities in lessons that are designed to help support the development of their knowledge base, memory and recall skills. They will also see that assessments will focus on revisiting work over a longer period of time (e.g. Year 10 tests will include Year 9 work) to help them build their knowledge and skills towards the demands of the final examinations. Teachers will use different forms of assessment throughout each year and provide your child with feedback in different ways to support their learning and allow them to plan lessons effectively to meet student needs across all years.

You will receive a report three times per year for Years 10 and 11. When a class teacher reports on your child’s performance, they will give their CONSISTENTLY WORKING AT (CWA) attainment grade. This means that your child’s grades will likely be spread across a wider range of levels than previously, so do not worry if you see a range of results across different subjects; this will depend on the subject and how it builds knowledge and skills across the length of each course – each teacher will explain what the expectation is for their subject to your child in lessons during the year.

Your child will also get a PREDICTED grade, which will be a professional judgement calculated by your child’s class teacher based on their current attainment, their current attitude to learning (see description below), past performance in each subject and recent examination grade boundaries. As they progress towards their final assessment, the gaps between current and predicted grades will narrow to show how much progress they have made in each subject over time.

Your child will also be given an Attitude to Learning (A2L) grade which is allocated according to a set of criteria. These are colour-coded and are on a range: GOLD (top) – SILVER – GREEN – AMBER – RED (bottom). The expectation is that each child achieves a minimum of GREEN but they should always aim to achieve higher. When students fall into amber or red categories, teachers will speak to them and address the reasons for this. They may also contact you to discuss any concerns.

You will receive a report twice per year for Years 7, 8 & 9. At Key Stage 3 students will be assessed on the progress they are making from their unique starting points.  On entry, all students are assigned a route. Students who remain in the same route throughout KS3 are making expected progress. Students who move to the next route are exceeding expected progress and students move to the prior route are making less than expected progress. 

The reporting schedule and relevant descriptors for Attitude to Learning (All years), Progress descriptors (KS3) and Grade descriptors (KS4)  are set out below for your information.