Feedback and Assessment Intent

This policy aims to establish a consistent approach to feedback and assessment across all subject areas. It focuses on ensuring that feedback is meaningful and individualised, encouraging students to actively engage with it to demonstrate progress. By fostering a culture of ownership over their learning, we aim to build a strong foundation for continuous, ambitious, and innovative Assessment for Learning (AFL).

Assessment for Learning (AFL)

Assessment for Learning is central to our teaching practice. AFL strategies—both formal and informal, formative and summative—are used to support progress in every lesson. Formal assessments such as tests, exams, and essays are complemented by informal strategies like questioning, live feedback, and peer/self-assessment. Incorporating AFL into lesson planning and assessment practices ensures that every student has the opportunity to make progress.

Formative Assessment and Feedback

Students receive regular formative feedback based on our Strength, Improvement, and Challenge (SIC) framework. This feedback highlights their strengths, areas for improvement, and sets challenges to drive further progress. The frequency of formative assessment is aligned with the number of curriculum hours allocated to each subject area:

  • 4+ hours per week: feedback every two weeks
  • 2-3 hours per week: feedback every three weeks
  • 1 hour per week: feedback every four weeks

Feedback is presented on a ‘Purple Sheet,’ and students respond to feedback during dedicated lesson time using a green pen to ensure they engage with the feedback.

Summative Assessment and Feedback

Summative assessments are conducted at the end of a unit or project and are marked using a consistent and fixed set of criteria specific to each subject. These assessments provide a comprehensive overview of each student’s progress and are moderated within faculties. After each summative assessment, students receive SIC feedback, identifying their strengths, areas for improvement, and setting challenges. Summative assessment data is collected and reported internally three times a year.

Literacy Marking

Work reviewed for formative and summative assessments is marked for literacy using a common marking code. This ensures consistency in how we address spelling, punctuation, grammar, and word choice errors. Students are expected to correct these errors in green pen, and whole-class teaching is provided where frequent errors are identified.

The marking codes are:

  • SP: Spelling error
  • CP: Capitalisation error
  • P: Punctuation error
  • G: Grammar error
  • WC: Word choice error

Standards

Students are expected to maintain their books to a high standard, with clear dates and titles, fully completed work, and legible handwriting. While presentation is important, the focus of feedback remains on student progress. Standards are monitored at a faculty level during SLT and CL quality assurance checks.

Data-Driven Instruction (DDI)

Data from assessments is used to inform future teaching practices. Reflection exercises are carried out by class teachers and curriculum leaders to analyse assessment results, identifying areas for improvement and making necessary adjustments to lesson plans, schemes of work, and teaching strategies. Reflection exercises include class and cohort reflection grids, which guide actions such as reteaching specific concepts or adapting future lesson plans to address identified weaknesses.