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St Wilfrid's Catholic School

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Key Stage 3 Assessment

Introduction

In 2016 the National Curriculum standardised levels for KS1, KS2 and KS3 were removed by the Department for Education and Secondary Education schools had to design their own Assessment Plans and Terms of Assessment.

 

The St Wilfrid’s model uses 4 terms of reference for formal assessment in KS3 (Years 7, 8 and 9). These are:

Extending: to achieve a mark at this standard, a student will have performed at the very highest standard against the criteria for the task.

Securing: to achieve this, the student has demonstrated, in a confident manner, the skill and knowledge required for the task.
Developing: to achieve this, a student has some concept and ability to deliver the skills and knowledge but is still needing to work on specific elements linked to the specific criteria in the task.
Emerging: to achieve this, a student has demonstrated a limited grasp of the assessed tasks skills and knowledge. 

 

Each year has age-related expectations which are linked to subject criteria. Assessment in Key Stage 3 will be assigned and marked to one of 4 bands above according to the level of challenge. The level of challenge increases in time ie Securing in Year 8 will be higher in skills and knowledge than in Year 7.

 

Therefore, a student who is assessed at the same band from one year (and term) to the next is making expected progress. A student who moves to a higher band is making greater progress at that moment. When staff mark an assessed task, they will enter the final achievement into our data capture system Go 4 Schools. As a parent you are able to access this for your son/daughter and see the accumulation of marked tasks over the academic year. Subject Leaders will have applied weighting to the tasks over the year as they see fit and so the overarching “current performance” grade may well change with each assessed mark over the year.

 

In Year 9 some of the subjects will start elements of the GCSE specification due to the content of the course. Students will have therefore a blend of GCSE grading and non-GCSE  - (this applies to the core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science and Religious Education which are compulsory in KS4.)

 

Over the course of the year there are formal capture points for reporting home, importantly these will combine assessment data (a student’s current performance) and an Attitude to Learning grade that each teacher awards for its subject.

 

If you have further questions relating to your son/daughter’s assessment in a subject please contact their class teacher who will be able to assist and inform.