24 November 2021
Dear Parent/Carer,
In preparation for the Year 7, 9 and 10 Parent Consultation Day on Friday 10th December 2021 we would like to share some important information as to how this event will operate.
- At present it is intended that this will be a face-to-face event with parents/carers invited in to school to discuss your child's report and progress.
- Your child will be allocated a Consultation Tutor who will be responsible for meeting with you on the day.
- If your child previously had a Personal Tutor, their Consultation Tutor may be the same member of staff.
- The role of the Consultation Tutor will be to go through and discuss the content of your child's report with you and them.
- Your child's Consultation Tutor may not teach them but will be the main point of contact at all Parent Consultation events.
- If you have more than one child in the school they will have the same Consultation Tutor.
- You will have the opportunity to go and see your child's subject teachers following the initial meeting with the Consultation Tutor, some teachers may have requested to see you anyway.
- Your child's Consultation Tutor will make an appointment for you via School Cloud, more details about this process will be provided in due course.
Information regarding the booking of appointments will be published in due course so please look out for this.
Please find important information below about what to expect on your child’s report.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Hearnden
Vice Principal
What to expect on your child’s report.
This is an interim report. It will not contain assessment data or written comments. It will use a common set of indicators that the school employs across Years 7 – 11. We call these indicators RAYGE and they are colour coded.
|
RAYGE |
Meaning |
|
R |
Well below expectation |
|
A |
Below expectation |
|
Y |
In line with expectation |
|
G |
Above expectation |
|
E |
Well above expectation |
Expectation is relative to the student’s teaching group and with respect to Assessment, the student’s prior attainment.
Y is the minimum we expect of all students.
A is cause for concern and parents and carers are advised to visit their child’s teacher to ascertain the nature of the concern and discuss strategy to resolve it.
R is a major concern. Parents and carers should visit their child’s teacher to discuss how home and school support can resolve the concern.
The indicators are applied to 4 areas of learning.
|
Area |
Examples |
|
Assessment |
Performance in a range of assessment types: marked homework or classwork, topic tests, multi-topic tests or more demanding assessment, verbal Q&A. |
|
Classwork |
Written work. Contribution to class discussion. Work coverage. |
|
Homework |
Completion and quality of homework. |
|
Work Ethic |
Attitude to learning. Contribution in class. Keenness to achieve. Diligence. |
Year 7
Only four subjects will report: Religious Education, English, Mathematics and Science.
Why only four?
To amass evidence to inform judgements takes time. The four subjects are core to the curriculum and across the 52 period timetable they account for 23 periods. The judgement of these four subjects is sufficient to form an overview of student performance at this time.
Next report
Year 7 students will receive a full report in July 2022.
This will include RAYGE and written comments for all subjects and Year 7 exam data from:
Religious Education, English, Mathematics, Science, French, Geography and History.
Year 9
RAYGE will be reported for the following subjects:
Religious Education, English, Mathematics, Science, French, Geography and History.
Next report
Year 9 students will receive a full report in July 2022.
This will include RAYGE and written comments for all subjects and Year 9 exam data from:
Religious Education, English, Mathematics, Science, French, Geography and History.
Year 10
RAYGE will be reported for all subjects.
For Year 10 and 11 reports, Assessment is split into:
- A-POL = Assessment at the point of learning.
- A-DFL = Assessment distant from the point of learning.
An example of the difference: a subject might ask retrieval questions at the start of a lesson to test understanding of the work recently covered. The subject might set a topic test or mark written work every two weeks. These are A-POL.
After 8 weeks the subject may set an assessment to cover the content of the previous 8 weeks of learning. This would involve students revising to review their understanding of topics. The assessment might also call upon topic covered in Years 7 – 9. This is A-DFL.
This distinction is included because it is not uncommon to see students that are stronger with A-POL and weaker with A-DFL. And of course GCSE examinations will all be A-DFL.
Expectation
- In England progress is a measure of the attainment at Year 6 compared to the attainment at Year 11.
- National data exists that allows future GCSE expectation for students of known Year 6 attainment to be calculated.
- On Year 10 reports these will be shown as AG (Average Grade).
- In addition the report will show CG (Challenge Grade). This is the average grade achieved by the top 25% of students with similar Year 6 attainment.
- The two grades are reported to inform students, parents and carers. They will help in deciding subject target grades.
Expectation, not targets!
Expectation is a statistical calculation. It does not represent a target grade for the student to achieve. Year 10 students have had three years of schooling since they sat Year 6 tests. Some students will feel that the average grade reflects where they would like to achieve, for some it will be too low and for some a challenge.
For those who think the AG is too low then the CG informs what more able students, of similar Year 6 attainment, go on to achieve at GCSE.
Students, parents and carer should set target grades and they may seek guidance from subject teachers.
Next report
Year 10 students will receive a full report in July 2022. Including RAYGE, exam data and written comments for all subjects.