Marking and Assessment Policy January 2013 St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School

The Aims of marking and assessment At SRG, we believe the purpose of feedback and marking is to enhance and improve the learning of our students. Assessment will take the shape of formative and summative. The assessment strategies aim to be: Consistent within the school At the centre of our students’ learning - therefore, students are involved in the assessment process Encouraging, so that students strive to be successful as individuals and assist them with planning the next stages of learning Varied in style e.g. highlighted marking, comment only marking, self- evaluation, peer assessment (see appendix 1) Purposeful and of use in identifying areas of achievement and development

Marking at St Richard Gwyn There are 4 key areas in which marking should take place… Formative & Rich Marking Summative Assessment Acknowledgement & Effort Rich Literacy & Numeracy

Formative & Rich Marking Assessment for Learning Raise students’ achievement Use of ‘success criteria’….student driven Feedback in terms of WHAT and HOW an item of work can be improved. Grades/levels should not be added to students work at this stage….however oral feedback can indicate. Time must be devoted to read and action improvements to task.

Summative Assessment Assessment of Learning KS3 Levelled according to National Curriculum Level plus a, b and c to indicate security It is to be remembered that this is a best fit approach. KS4/5 Graded according to exam board criteria +/- to indicate security Closed tasks such as simple tests can give numerical scores or percentages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT & EFFORT MARKING Can include signing or initialling pages and ticking to show work has been looked acknowledged Should be quick to complete with brief feedback to students on the following areas Checking completion of work. Checking for misconceptions to be addressed. Highlighting of common subject spelling and grammatical errors Highlighting of secretarial errors

EFFORT MARKING 1.Excellent effort (over and above expected effort level) 2.Good effort (working at expected effort level) 3. Needs improvement(there are some areas where effort needs improving) 4.Cause for concern(work is well below what is expected effort level) Effort level ‘1’ should be rewarded with house points, department stickers, postcard or success letters Effort levels ‘3’ and ‘4’ require feedback to highlight how students need to improve, complete or repeat the task. A student consistently being awarded a 4 for effort will require further intervention e.g. learning support discussion or parent/guardian contact to discuss progress.

RICH LITERACY & NUMERACY MARKING In line with the Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF, January 2013) Subject specific technical vocabulary Non specialist words Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar Numerical strands in relation to their specific subject

FREQUENCY OF MARKING Minimum Requirements FORMATIVE RICH MARKING - Once per half term SUMMATIVE MARKING - Three per Year ACKNOWLEDGMENT & EFFORT MARKING - Once every three weeks RICH LITERACY & NUMERACY MARKING- One per half term

MONITORING OF ASSESSMENT Formally monitored by CL’s and SLT Informal monitoring at Department meetings Monitoring will focus primarily on the impact of written feedback A number of areas will be monitored – indicated in policy

APPENDIX The appendix shows 10 possible suggestions for the marking of students’ work This list is not exhaustive and departments could also develop or already have their own methods for certain tasks