3rd-5th Year Grade Card Changes

Welcome FOCUS FOR THIS EVENING: How the 9-1 grading system correlates to A*-G; Regular assessments throughout 3rd – 6th Form and students’ views about this; Clarity in grade/level criteria across all subjects; Changes we are making to our Grade Card system; What is MidYIS and what does it assess? How we feel these changes will benefit your child.

9-1 System National 9-1 grading system replaces A*-G, with 9 being the top grade. Main rationale: to allow greater differentiation between students at the top end and to help distinguish the new GCSEs from previous versions; From September 2016, Third – Fourth Years experienced the 9-1 system; First- Second Years from September 2017. Current situation – all year groups are marked 9-1 for all subjects except for English.

COMPARABLE OUTCOMES Students will not lose out – government uses statistical method known as comparable outcomes, so that broadly the same proportion of students achieve: Grade 5 has been defined by the Department for Education as being a good pass. We were pleasantly surprised last year with our equivalent of A* - 8/9 grades at 50%, being higher than we expected from government forecasts. Nationally 7% of letter grades were A* and 10.8% were 8/9 (with 4.3% graded a 9), 21.7% of letter grades were A*-A; 20.3% 7-9. 9-1 SYSTEM A* - G SYSTEM 7 and above A and above 5 Low B/Top C 4 and above Low C and above

Changes to the Grade Card Assessment Grade What is MidYIS/who are CEM CEM Grade How to read the Grade Card

Current Grade Card 2 main issues: A student who achieves a 7 in class and assessments and one who achieves an 8 on class and homework, but consistently underperforms on tests can end up looking the same: we want to identify and help these students. Students compare themselves only to others, rather than also considering their progress with respect to their own talents

Regular Assessment – a Student’s Perspective from Sasha Reed Maintain focus throughout the year Know your strengths and weaknesses Build revision skills and exam technique

Assessment Grade How will it be administered What we think it adds Assessment in the subject – essay, test, project Boundaries set across year group, appropriate for subject* Aim is to assess progress as a learning tool What we think it adds Objective measure to compare to teacher impression Builds skills for success in 6th Form How to read it Typical St George’s student will get a 7 9’s will be awarded for very top students only, especially in 3rd and 4th year – subject dependent. A 9 is mainly about drawing lots of impressive skills together in the exam. This is hard to assess until we have covered the bulk of the material. *There is not a certain % that gets an 8. This will vary by subject and test, based on the GCSE boundaries and professional judgement of the staff

Department Assessments Class tests, e.g. Biology, Maths, RE Assessed Essays – English Mixture of project work, tests and essays – Food Technology, Drama, Computing, History Will have started for current 4th and 5th Grade Cards

What is MidYIS* https://www.cem.org/midyis Sit in 1st year and again in 3rd year. Single test that gives 4 scores – verbal and non-verbal reasoning, maths and skills. Used by majority of schools in the area to give a statistical target grade, based on historical pupil data from hundreds of thousands of students. We can adjust this target going into the 5th year based on teacher impression and progress for students where this is appropriate. The grade is only used as a point for discussion, it is not provided to universities. *Centre for Educational Monitoring (CEM) set and analyse the Middle Years Information System (MidYIS) test.

Grade Cards – new 4th and 5th Year 2 new columns. Compare Assessment with WAL to see if there is a pattern. CEM is the statistical grade based on MidYIS

Grade Cards – new 3rd Year No CEM grade. All students sit MidYIS at some point in 3rd Year.

What we think this offers A way to set grade expectations so that all students can be praised for achievement Something for bright hardworking students to feel they can beat An ability to better identify and help those students who under perform in assessments compared with classwork Develop revision skills and encourage students to take responsibility for their learning

Any Questions?