We aim to keep all parents and carers up to date with the progress of their child in school; to this end, we produce three reviews spread across the school year. Each review contains information about your child’s attitude to learning, any key causes for concern impacting on their performance and an ‘ongoing’ level reflecting on their achievement across a term. We report a ‘key piece’ or ‘assessment’ level twice a year. This is the result arising from a test, mock exam paper or another piece of work completed under test conditions.
If you have any questions about your child’s report, their subject teacher can help in the first instance, or where there are multiple causes of concern, their head of year can assist.
Years 7, 8 & 9
click to readOur Year 7, 8 & 9 reports provide information about your child’s learning in a number of different areas:
- Attitude to Learning
- An assessment or ‘key piece’ level, reported during the spring and summer terms
- An ongoing assessment level
Here is an example of a Year 7 Student Review:
Attitude to Learning (ATL)
The attitude to learning grade encompasses learning and study at school.
A Excellent: an exemplary attitude at all times – concentrates and participates eagerly in all activities and always willing to try their best.
B Good: a positive attitude, working hard, concentrates in lessons and participates well in a variety of tasks
C Room for improvement: does what is required but tends to lack self-motivation and concentration. Often needs encouragement to participate and work/effort is of an inconsistent standard
D Unsatisfactory: often needs significant encouragement to engage with the lesson and related tasks. Work/effort is not regularly representative of their best
E Serious cause for concern: a generally negative attitude to tasks set, often reluctant to participate willingly, regularly distracted or distracting others in lessons. Work is rarely completed to an acceptable standard
Attitude to learning: Homework
A Excellent: consistently completed to the best of a student’s ability and submitted on time
B Good: usually completed to the best of a student’s ability and submitted on time
C Room for Improvement: quality is variable and/or not submitted consistently on time
D Unsatisfactory: regularly completed to an unsatisfactory standard and/or regularly not submitted on time
E Serious cause for concern: persistently completed to an unsatisfactory standard and/or persistently not submitted on time
Key Cause for Concern
If your child’s ‘Attitude to Learning’ is a C, D or E grade, the subject teacher will provide a reason for this, such as lateness, effort or behaviour in class. If you wish to discuss any key causes for concern, please contact the subject teacher in the first instance, or where there are multiple causes for concern, your child’s head of year can assist.
Key Piece Assessment
This indicates the level achieved in a specific piece of work or test, carried out during each assessment week:
W Working at a pre-Key Stage 3 level
W+ Working towards the expected standard
M Reaching the expected standard
M+ Consistently and securely meeting the expected standard
E Working at the expected standard and exceeding in several areas
E+ Comfortably exceeding all of the expected standards
Levels are based on the knowledge, skills and understanding that students are expected to develop and apply at Key Stage 3 in each subject area of the National Curriculum. Where a subject does not form part of the National Curriculum, such as Dance and Drama, staff have defined appropriate learning outcomes.
Ongoing grade
This indicates the grade that the student is working at, taking into account all work completed during the term, not just during the assessment week. We use the same set of levels as for the Key Piece Assessment.
How Parents / Carers can help:
Look carefully at the grades your child has achieved in the latest progress report. Compare them with your child’s previous reports – these can be viewed on the Edulink One app under ‘Documents’. Note any positives where your child has improved and encourage them to continue to do their very best. It is also helpful to collectively identify areas for improvement which should be revisited regularly.
Please contact us if you have any concerns or if you think your child is doing less well in a certain subject. Your child’s form tutor, subject teachers or Head of Year can assist here and you can do this by emailing or telephoning school. For anything urgent, please call to make an appointment.
Homework
Homework is an important element of assessing, recording and reporting and provides:
- An opportunity for more detailed, in-depth work
- A clear homework task, available on our website
- A focus on one subject per week– along with English and maths
- The building blocks for independent learning
- A further opportunity for challenging able, gifted and talented students as well as providing differentiated tasks for other students
- A common framework for assessment in each subject
How is homework assessed?
- The same grades are used as for Attitude to Learning
- Online assessment (e.g. code.org, Hegarty Maths or Century Tech)
- Responses to quiz assignments (e.g. Socrative or Quizlet)
- Teacher comments
- Targets for improvement
Edulink One
When homework is set, your child’s teacher will record the deadline date on the Edulink One app. All students have access to Edulink One and parents will receive an invitation to log in.
If you have any further queries about homework or anything curriculum related, please do not hesitate to contact the relevant Curriculum Leader.
Year 7 & 8 Core PE Reporting from September 2023
From September 2022, we are trialling a different way of reporting progress in PE with a new focus on Head, Heart and Skill,
Head >> Understanding and demonstration of the 4 termly values.
| TERM 1 :Autumn | TERM 2 : Winter | TERM 3 :Summer |
| Social Interaction | Resilience | Perseverance |
| Empathy | Motivation | Determination |
| Respect | Adaptability | Commitment |
| Co-operation | Confidence | Self Reflection |
Heart >> Effort, attitude and organisation in PE.
Skill >> Performance in a range of sports over the term.
A Gold, Silver or Bronze award is available for each strand of HHS in PE.
Each term students will take part in a broad range of sports. Through these sports we will explore 4 key values that all students should be able to understand, demonstrate and hopefully transfer into other areas of school and home life. In every sport students will develop skills and work on improving their performance. All students will be encouraged to give maximum effort in all sports and should always bring their correct PE Kit.
Years 10 & 11
Our Year 10 & 11 reports provide information about your child’s learning in a number of different areas:
- Attitude to Learning
- Homework
- An assessment or ‘key piece’ grade, reported twice a year
- An ongoing assessment grade
- A predicted final grade (from June in Year 10 onwards)
- Target grade
GCSE grades have changed in recent years; the old A-G grades have been replaced by a 9-1 scale with 9 being the highest possible award. A grade 4 is equivalent to an ‘old’ low grade C in the previous grading system and is referred to as a ‘standard pass’ by the DfE; a grade 5 is deemed a ‘strong pass’ and a grade 7 is equivalent to a grade A.
An example student review:
What is a target grade?
We use data provided by the DfE to generate a target grade for each student in each subject; this is based on the SATs tests taken at the end of Year 6. We then add a small amount to ensure that all students are stretched and challenged. If a student progresses more quickly or has underachieved at KS2 then we will increase the target to maintain challenge.
How can I tell if my son/daughter is on track to make the required levels of progress?
Every child will progress at a different rate and this can also differ from subject to subject. We issue predicted grades for each subject which indicate the grade we think students are most likely to achieve given their current effort in class and homework.
Please remember that our targets are set to challenge students and you should not be alarmed if your child is not on or exceeding targets in all subjects. If you have any concerns about the progress of your child, please contact the relevant curriculum leader.
What information will I receive about my child’s progress in KS4?
Key Piece Assessment
Indicates the students’ current GCSE (or equivalent) grade achieved in a specific piece of work or test, carried out during our assessment weeks. In core computing, assessments are graded as follows:
- Working towards (W or W+) core computing skills
- Meeting expectations (M or M+)
- Exceeding expectations (E or E+) by producing computing work of an excellent standard
Ongoing grade
Indicates the current GCSE (or equivalent) grade that the student is working at, taking into account all work completed during the term, not just during the assessments.
Target grade
Indicates the GCSE (or equivalent) grade that a student should aspire to at the end of the key stage (Year 11), based on KS2 prior attainment and a teacher’s professional judgement.
Predicted grade
Predicted Grade indicates the most likely grade that the student will achieve at the end of KS4 based on all the current evidence.
Attitude to learning: Homework
A Excellent: consistently completed to the best of a student’s ability and submitted on time
B Good: usually completed to the best of a student’s ability and submitted on time
C Room for Improvement: quality is variable and/or not submitted consistently on time
D Unsatisfactory: regularly completed to an unsatisfactory standard and/or regularly not submitted on time
E Serious cause for concern: persistently completed to an unsatisfactory standard and/or persistently not submitted on time
Attitude to Learning: Classwork
A Excellent: an exemplary attitude at all times – concentrates and participates eagerly in all activities and always willing to try their best
B Good: a positive attitude, working hard, concentrates in lessons and participates well in a variety of tasks
C Room for improvement: does what is required but tends to lack self-motivation and concentration. Often needs encouragement to participate and work/effort is of an inconsistent standard
D Unsatisfactory: often needs significant encouragement to engage with the lesson and related tasks. Work/effort regularly not representative of their best
E Serious cause for concern
How Parents / Carers can help:
Look carefully at the grades your child has achieved in the latest progress report. Compare them with your child’s previous reports – these can be viewed on the Edulink One app under ‘Documents’. Note any positives where your child has improved and encourage them to continue to do their very best. It is also helpful to collectively identify areas for improvement which should be revisited regularly.
Please contact us if you have any concerns or if you think your child is doing less well in a certain subject. Your child’s form tutor, subject teachers or Head of Year can assist here and you can do this by emailing or telephoning school. For anything urgent, please call or make an appointment.
Homework in KS4
Homework is an important element of assessing, recording and reporting and provides:
- An opportunity for more detailed, in-depth work
- The building blocks for independent learning, particularly important in preparation for post 16 study
- A variety of tasks which might include research, completing exercises, drafting essays, learning vocabulary, practising skills, preparing for assessments and so on
All homework creates further opportunities to challenge students as well as provide differentiated tasks for all abilities.
How is homework assessed?
- GCSE grades and effort levels
- Online assessment (e.g. code.org, Hegarty Maths or Century Tech)
- Responses to quiz assignments (e.g. Socrative or Quizlet)
- Teacher comments
- Targets for improvement
- Peer or Self-assessment
Edulink One
When homework is set, your child’s teacher will record the deadline date on the Edulink One app. All students have access to Edulink One and parents will receive an invitation to log in.
If you have any further queries about homework or anything curriculum related, please do not hesitate to contact the relevant Curriculum Leader.
Years 12 & 13
click to readOur Year 12 and 13 reports provide information about your child’s learning in a number of different areas:
- Attitude to Learning
- Homework
- An assessment or ‘key piece’ grade, reported twice a year
- An ongoing assessment grade
- A predicted final grade (from June in Year 9 onwards)
- Target grade
An example Year 12 report:
Attitude to Learning: Classwork
A Excellent: an exemplary attitude at all times – concentrates and participates eagerly in all activities and always willing to try their best
B Good: a positive attitude, working hard, concentrates in lessons and participates well in a variety of tasks
C Room for improvement: does what is required but tends to lack self-motivation and concentration
Often needs encouragement to participate and work/effort is of an inconsistent standard
D Unsatisfactory: often needs significant encouragement to engage with the lesson and related tasks. Work/effort regularly not representative of their best
E Serious cause for concern
Key Cause for Concern
If your child’s ‘Attitude to Learning’ is a C, D or E grade, the subject teacher will provide a reason for this, such as lateness, effort or behaviour in class. If you wish to discuss any key causes for concern, please contact the subject teacher in the first instance, or where there are multiple causes for concern, your child’s head of year can assist.
Homework and Independent Study
Homework and Independent Study are an important part of learning in the sixth form. Independent Study is not simply completing homework, but reflects the time each learner spends reflecting on their work, reading around a subject, or engaging in wider learning via the internet, television and social media, for example by subscribing to TED Talks or the Khan Academy.
Independent study is fundamental to success in the sixth form and at university. We timetable all students for three periods of independent study in a room staffed with a teacher; this should be seen as just a beginning. A regular and genuine commitment to independent study will pay huge dividends in final grades.
A Excellent: always completed to the best of a student’s ability
B Very good: usually completed to the best of a student’s ability
C Room for Improvement: quality is variable
D Unsatisfactory: regularly completed to an unsatisfactory standard
E Serious cause for concern: persistently completed to an unsatisfactory standard
Key Piece Assessment, Ongoing, Predicted Final Grade and Target Grade
For A level courses grades A*- E or U (no pass) and for vocational courses grades Di* (Distinction*), Di (Distinction), M (Merit), P (Pass) or U (no pass).
Key Piece Assessment
Indicates the students’ current A Level (or equivalent) grade achieved in a specific piece of work or test, carried out during the Block Assessment week.
Ongoing grade
Indicates the current grade that the student is working at, taking into account all work completed during the term, not just during the assessment week.
Predicted Final Grade
Indicates the grade that your child’s teacher believes that they are most likely to achieve at the end of the course. This is based upon a teacher’s professional judgement of the ability and performance demonstrated to date.
Target grade
Shows the grade that a student should aspire to and could, at best, achieve at the end of the course. This is based upon a teacher’s professional judgement of ability and performance demonstrated to date.
How Parents / Carers can help:
Look carefully at the grades your child has achieved in the latest progress report. Compare them with your child’s previous reports – these can be viewed on the Edulink One app under ‘Documents’. Note any positives where your child has improved and encourage them to continue to do their very best. It is also helpful to collectively identify areas for improvement which should be revisited regularly.
Please contact us if you have any concerns or if you think your child is doing less well in a certain subject. Your child’s form tutor, subject teachers or Head of Year can assist here and you can do this by contacting us.