Assessment

Assessment at Marshland High School

We regularly check on our students learning and progress in order to identify gaps and support students where necessary. Primarily this is achieved in lesson time, however throughout the year we hold more formal assessments which are reported to parents. The schedule along with exact dates for these can be found on the school calendar

At the end of year 10, the students will complete their first set of pre public exams (PPE/Mocks) in order to establish a working GCSE grade. Further PPE’s will take place in the Autumn and Spring terms of year 11. This will conclude with the official GCSE exams beginning early May.

Glossary of Key Terms

Pre-public Exam (PPE)	Fully invigilated internal exam (mock), usually identical to the actual GCSE exams that are traditionally taken at the end of Y11. Results used to inform subsequent targeted intervention/support and predictions used for Post 16 applications.
Health Checks	Smaller class based assessments on topics identified as key weaknesses in larger, more formal assessments.
Assessment for Learning (AfL)	A range of strategies that teachers will use to check desired knowledge and acquisition of knowledge e.g. low stakes quizzing, PPQ’s and questioning.
Diagnosis, Therapy and Testing (DTT)	An AfL approach whereby staff use assessment to better inform lesson planning and support for targeted students. This takes the form of a cycle comprising testing to identify key areas of weaknesses (diagnosis), teaching or re-teaching these areas (therapy), followed by further testing to check improvements in learning/understanding of the key areas (testing).
Past paper questions (PPQ’s)	Actual exam questions taken from archived exam papers used to help prepare students for their PPE’s/Actual Exams.
Question Level Analysis (QLA)	Data analysis completed after PPEs to inform class teachers of trends within exam papers which informs lesson sequencing; highlighting topics and areas of strength and weakness for whole cohorts, whole classes and individual students.
Low stakes quizzing (LSQ)	Testing knowledge in an informal way to be built on and secured over time.
Smith Proforma	Document issued to students after formal assessments offering personalised guidance on revision topics and actions in response to PPE (collated from QLA)
Knowledge Organiser (KO)	Curriculum booklet issued to KS3 students which includes the 20% core subject content of everything being taught over the course of a term. This can be used in both lessons and independently to support learning of key knowledge. KS3 homework is mainly based on the Knowledge Organiser booklets.
Personal Learning Checklist (PLC)	An overview of the exam board specification provided to students to help them monitor and evaluate their understanding over time.