1. Sir James Smith’s Community School
STEPS GRID handbook
A practical guide
Key Stage 3

2. 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 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.

3. Introduction What is STEPS?
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.

4. Geography

5. Geography 9 8 7 6 Step Strand 1 Locational knowledge
World’s countries, maps of world, environmental regions, key characteristics, key cities
(Equal weighting)
Strand 2
Place
Similarities, differences and links between places through the study of human and physical geography of a region
Strand 3
Physical processes
Geological timescales, plate tectonics, rocks, weathering & soils, weather & climate, climate change, glaciation, hydrology, coasts
Strand 4
Human processes
Population, urbanisation, international development, economic activity, use of natural resources
Strand 5
Skills and fieldwork
Globes, maps (including OS) and atlases in the classroom and in the field, map skills, aerial and satellite photographs, Geographical Information System (GIS), fieldwork in contrasting locations 9
All of the below and…
can offer an outstanding knowledge of the world’s countries and major cities, often learned independently.
can evaluate whether the similarities, differences and links between places are typical or atypical.
can understand that complex interactions can cause physical processes and landforms to change over time.
can understand that complex interactions can cause human processes and societies to change over time.
can draw selectively on geographical ideas and theories.
can complete geographical investigations independently at different scales. 8
can recall a wide range of specific detail relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can link human and physical processes and explain how they interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate.
can explain changes in the characteristics of landforms over time in terms of physical processes.
can explain changes in the characteristics of societies over time in terms of human processes.
can use multiple sources of complex primary and secondary data.
can independently sequence enquiries.
can offer substantiated conclusions based on critical analysis and evaluation of all available evidence. 7
can recall a range of specific detail relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can relate detailed knowledge, understanding and conceptual ideas to other places, often with specific detail.
can use named examples and place knowledge to explain physical processes with specific detail.
can use named examples and place knowledge to explain human processes with specific detail.
can select and use accurately a wide range of skills.
can evaluate sources of evidence, such as from websites.
can start to plan their own fieldwork and investigations. 6
can recall specific facts relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can explain fully how places are linked and can start to relate knowledge, understanding and key ideas to other places.
can explain physical processes in detail using a variety of key words.
can explain fully how a variety of landforms have been formed.
can explain human processes in detail using a variety of key words.
can use a wide range of map skills, including GIS, to describe and explain places and geographical patterns, such as migration.
can carry out fieldwork accurately using a range of methods/equipment.

6. Geography 5 4 3 2 1 Step Strand 1 Locational knowledge
World’s countries, maps of world, environmental regions, key characteristics, key cities
(Equal weighting)
Strand 2
Place
Similarities, differences and links between places through the study of human and physical geography of a region
Strand 3
Physical processes
Geological timescales, plate tectonics, rocks, weathering & soils, weather & climate, climate change, glaciation, hydrology, coasts
Strand 4
Human processes
Population, urbanisation, international development, economic activity, use of natural resources
Strand 5
Skills and fieldwork
Globes, maps (including OS) and atlases in the classroom and in the field, map skills, aerial and satellite photographs, Geographical Information System (GIS), fieldwork in contrasting locations 5
All of the below and…
can recall some detail (at times without facts and figures) relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can link places together through brief explanations (X links to Y because…).
starts to explain physical processes.
starts to explain how major landforms have been created, using linked statements.
starts to explain human processes.
can use other sources of evidence, such as aerial photos and satellite images, to describe places.
can suggest ways of carrying out fieldwork. 4
can recall vague detail (often without facts and figures) relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can start to link places together in simple descriptive terms (X links to Y).
can recognise and describe physical processes, such as erosion.
can start to suggest how major landforms have been created, although detail might be vague.
can recognise and describe human processes, such as urbanisation, although detail might be vague.
can use more advanced map skills, such as 6-figure grid references and contours, to describe places.
can carry out a range of fieldwork techniques, such as sketching and making simple maps. 3
can offer generalised statements relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can identify similarities and differences between places.
can identify the fundamental parts of different landforms and physical processes.
can identify the fundamental parts of human processes, such as world population trends.
can use atlases, globes and OS maps to identify human and physical geography.
can use 4-figure grid references accurately.
can describe data and maps. 2
can offer one or two simple but perhaps incorrect statements relating to the issue and to the location being studied.
can identify basic similarities and differences within a place.
can identify a range of landforms.
can identify some physical processes in basic terms (such as air rises and cools).
can identify some human processes in basic terms, such as people move to cities.
can use atlases, globes and OS maps to find places.
can carry out simple fieldwork, such as traffic counts.
can pick out trends on graphs. 1
Can…
attempt to recall some information about a place, but is likely to be incorrect or severely lacking in detail.
recognise and make observations about physical and human features of localities.
identify a limited range of basic landforms, such as hills, mountains.
identify a limited range of basic human processes.
use some simple skills, such as find countries in an atlas.
read simple data from a graph or table.

7. Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is STEPS? A. STEPS is an assessment-recording and progress-monitoring system for all subjects studied at Key Stage 3. Q. What are STEPS grids? A. The STEPS grids break a subject down into Strands of content and nine progressive Steps. Students are placed on the STEPS grid following a baseline assessment. The expected progress is at least one-Step per year or three-Steps over the key stage. Q. What is a Strand? A. A Strand is an area of study of a subject. Every subject is divided into between three and seven Strands. Q. What is a Step? A. Every Strand is broken down into nine progressive Steps. Nine is the highest Step and one is the lowest. Steps provide the pathway through the Programme of Study for each Strand. Q. Why does my child appear to have made more progress in one subject than another? A. All subjects are different and so are children! It is quite understandable for one student to have a different rate of progress to another. Learning is a cycle of improvement. Students improve and then plateau before making further improvement – the timescale for this improvement is very individual and varies between subjects. It is quite normal for rapid progress to be made when children are exposed for the first time to specialist teaching, when perhaps teachers with expert knowledge were not available in primary school. Q. My child seems to have made no progress at all in one subject. A. There could be circumstances which would mean that within the last assessment cycle this was the case. It could be a completely new subject, or one that has been studied for only a portion of the year. We are anticipating three Steps of progress over the key stage and that one Step is merely the average of this expected progress each year. Remember also that in Science, progress has been built implicitly into the schemes of work. Therefore your child will be expected to stay on the same step or fluctuate above/ below this step as the content becomes more challenging throughout the year. Progress will be numerically represented by a variation score (progress score) from your child’s start point. If your child’s score is positive or remains at 0 throughout the year this represents expected progress or above expected progress; if they receive a minus progress score then this indicates that they will need more support to maintain their progress in the upcoming units.