Teachers assess students work continuously and at the end of units of work as well as at the end of each year. The continuous assessment is often referred to as formative assessment whereas assessment that takes place at the end of a piece of work is usually referred to as summative assessment.
Subject leaders across the Russell Education Trust have worked collaboratively to draw up the Key Stage 3 Stage Ladders, which set out clear descriptors for what students know, and can do, as their attainment improves in each subject. Some subjects may use these descriptions of learning during the year, and some will assess units of work summatively using marks out of a total.
There is one Ladder per subject, although there are multiple strands within the ladder for different skills (e.g. in Modern Foreign Languages where students are assessed on their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills).
We would expect students to make one stage of progress per academic year.
This means that students will be progressing well if they move from Stage 2 on entry to Stage 3 at the end of Year 7, Stage 4 in Year 8 and Stage 5 at the end of Year 9. The attainment described in Stage 5 of the ladders represents good progress for most students in Key Stage 3 and readiness to continue the subject to a good GCSE pass in Key Stage 4.
Stages do describe attainment at higher levels than this (up to Stage 7). Many of our students will make more than one stage of progress in some years, perhaps reaching Stage 6 or 7 before moving into Key Stage 4. These students will be well placed to achieve very high grades in their GCSEs.
Typical stages that the majority of students will reach are summarised below.
Stage | Year 6 | Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 |
7 | ||||
6 | High | |||
5 | High | Typical | ||
4 | High | Typical | Support | |
3 | High | Typical | Support | |
2 | Typical | Support | ||
1 | Support |