Assessing progress at Key Stage 3

From January 2022 until leaving my school in July 2024, one of my main roles was leading on progress, data collection & analysis, and intervention for Key Stage 3 (and from summer 2022, Key Stage 4 also). In this post I’m going to write about how we assess progress for our students. I won’t include much detail about assessment for learning (AFL) inside the classroom, but rest assured it was there.

Assessment structure

We have our topics organised by subject, roughly once per half-term (i.e. a biology topic for about 6 weeks, then a physics topic for about 6 weeks, and so on). At the end of each topic, the students sat an in-class assessment consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions, a short written question and a longer written question. At the end of the year, the students sit a ‘proper’ exam consisting entirely of written questions.

Data analysis

Following each assessment, the decile that each student falls into is calculated (this is done in reverse, so a ‘1’ indicates the top 10%, and a ’10’ indicates the top 100%). These are then colour-coded according to the school’s policy. This data is not shared with parents.

Using KS2 data and the CAT tests that students sit at the start of Year 7, the leadership team calculates which group of deciles a student should fall into to indicate they are making enough progress.

Example: Student A has a target group of deciles 2-5, so they should be at least in the top 50% of students in the year group at each assessment point. If they are found in the top 10%, then they are graded ‘above expected progress’, whereas if they are in the lower 50% then they would be categorised as ‘below expected progress’ when reporting to parents.

Where appropriate, there can be some teacher discretion. For example if a student

Pros of this system

• It is not as prescriptive as target grades, so there is a bit more leeway
• Teachers are easily informed of which students need in-class intervention based on results
• Students don’t have to do individual data analysis for their classes so it’s easy to fill in grade collection reports

Cons of this system

• In theory, students with target groups of ‘top 10%’ or ‘bottom 90%’ can never be rated as ‘above expected progress’ or ‘below expected progress’ respectively – there is some teacher discretion required here
• A student might have consistently scored ~10-15% on each assessment and still be rated ‘making expected progress’ – is there enough aspiration for students here?
• The need for teacher nuance in scenarios like the above reduces effectiveness in making teachers’ lives easier

Whilst it isn’t a perfect system, it worked well for helping push students to make the progress they should have been, and on the whole reduced teacher workload without losing effectiveness.