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Learn about STAGES, a monitoring program for schools. Understand how it tracks and reports student progress, with detailed reports and grids for each subject. Expectations and goals detailed for each step of progress in this comprehensive system.
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Sir James Smith’s Community School STEPS GRID handbook A practical guide Key Stage 3
STEPS and the STEP Grid Handbook Monitoring and reporting attainment and progress in Year-7 and Year-8. Dear parent/ carer, As someone with a son or daughter in Year 7/8 you may be aware that there have many changes to assessment in schools over the last few years. At the same time as the government’s announcement of a major shift in the way attainment and progress were to be reported at KS2 from September 2016, they also indicated the abolishment of ‘levels’ at KS3, but with a much earlier deadline of September 2014. However, unlike KS2, there was no prescribed alternative system put into place across the country and all secondary schools were invited to create their own model of assessment. Over the past two years we have been working to create an assessment model that will work with our Key Stage 3 students. This year we have improved our model to create distinct STEPS grids. Each grid is comprised of 9 ’steps’ and a number of ’strands’. The grid contains descriptors for what a child needs to be able to do to complete a ‘step’. Your son/ daughter will start with a baseline ‘step’, which will be derived from KS2 data and baseline assessments they will complete in their opening weeks of the Autumn-term. We will report the baseline step for each subject in the Q1 report in mid-November. It is expected that most students would move up each strand by at least 1 step each year (3 steps over the course of the key stage)*. We feel very confident that what your son/ daughter experiences at Sir Jim’s is indeed a very comprehensive and professional package. This assessment model allows you as parents and carers the opportunity to be closely involved in their attainment, progress and target setting over the entire key stage. Accompanying this letter you will find your own copy of the STEPS grids. Please keep this safe and use it to cross reference attainment on each report with content of the KS3 courses for each subject studied. Finally, please feel free to contact me directly if you have a specific question about the system which needs further explanation. Yours faithfully Mr. E. McGuffie Assistant Head Teacher – Curriculum * In Science, progress is built implicitly into the scheme of work. Therefore students will be expected to stay on the same step or fluctuate above/ below this step as the content becomes more challenging throughout the year.
Introduction • What is STEPS? • Strategic Targets for Educational Progress and Success (STEPS) is an assessment and progress monitoring, tracking and reporting programme for secondary schools. • How does it work? • Upon arrival in Year-7, every student is assessed via a broad range of information and results available to the school. Subject teachers then place students at a baseline Step in each Strand and this becomes the starting point for each subject. A Step Point Score is generated which is an overall score for a subject. Each student is expected to make at least one Step of progress in the Step Point Score per year, with the exception of Science where progress has been built implicitly into the scheme of work. • School reports • You will receive four reports per year showing your child’s attainment and progress in every Strand in every subject and it will also show you the overall Step Point Score. When used in conjunction with this handbook, it will give you both a detailed and quick method of reviewing attainment and progress so far. It will also allow you to discuss targets to progress to the next Step. • The STEPS grids • Each subject has its own grid, these form the rest of this handbook. Each grid is a basic summary of all the work that can be covered in each of the Key Stage 3 Programmes of Study. Each subject follows a similar approach. • Strands: these run along the top of the grid, they break a subject down into smaller topics or areas. There are between three and seven Strands per subject. • Steps: These break a subject down into progressive Steps. There are nine Steps per Strand per subject; 1 is the lowest Step and 9 is the highest. • Statements: Each Step has one or more statements. Students have to achieve all of these, and all of the ones in the Steps below, to be at that Step level. • The Step Point Score • Students will be given a Step score for each individual Strand in each subject. The Step Point Score combines these individual scores to give an overall score in a subject. • If 3.6 was the baseline at the start of year-7, then the students would be expected to reach: • 4.6 by the end of Year-7 • 5.6 by the end of Year-8 • 6.6 by the end of Year-9. • This would be a minimum expectation and targets could be adjusted each year to maintain challenge for each individual.
