Reporting and Assessment

It is important that every girl makes the progress that she is capable of making and has the highest aspirations for her learning. To maximise each girl’s progress and potential, at the start of Year 7, Year 9 and Year 12 pupils complete baseline tests provided by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) at Durham University. This involves completing an adaptive assessment which takes about an hour early in the Autumn Term. New arrivals in other year groups will also be included.

Girls cannot prepare for these tests because the bank of questions used is vast and varied. The test focuses on four strands: vocabulary, mathematics, non-verbal ability and perceptual speed and accuracy. When these components are combined, they provide a baseline score which allows all subsequent progress to be measured and monitored.

Results from the individual components also enable us to diagnose specific areas for support and early intervention. Should any of the tests draw our attention to issues which need to be addressed, for instance by the Learning Support department, we will contact parents to discuss the best way forward.

Clearly, these diagnostic tests are placed in the much bigger context of the knowledge we have of each individual girl and a girl’s success is measured in many ways. We believe that it is important to utilise as many helpful sources of information as possible to ensure that all girls achieve their true potential and more.

Your daughter’s effort, participation, approach and commitment to, her learning in each subject will be recorded in both Grade Cards and Reports using an Attitude to Learning descriptor. Attitude to Learning descriptors are focused around four core themes; Engagement, Effort, Resilience and Collaboration. These are intended to both acknowledge and promote effective learning habits, and instil Mayfield’s Cornelian Principles in girls’ everyday working behaviour. You can explore the Attitude to Learning criteria in more detail in the visual below:

At selected points throughout the year, tutors will discuss with girls’ their own perceptions of their attitude to learning and engage girls in conversation about how to develop their mindset and approaches to enable more effective learning and progress. Heads of Year/School and the Director of Teaching and Learning will monitor changes in attitude to learning over the course of the year.

Your daughter’s attainment across Years 7, 8 and 9 will be recorded using a Current Attainment Grade. These are numerical grades from 1 to 5, with plus (+) and minus (-) signs also used to indicate subdivisions within each level. 5+ is the highest possible grade, and 1- the lowest. See the table below which shows the typical range of grades to expect across each year, and during each term.

As an example, a girl in Year 7 should expect to receive grades within the levels 1- to 3+ throughout the year. It is important to note that in the Autumn Term she is likely to achieve between a 1 and 2 to allow for further progress later in the academic year.

Please note that girls starting a subject at beginner level in Year 8 or 9 will likely be graded using the Year 7 grade range.

At the end of the Autumn Term in Year 10 your daughter will receive a Current Attainment Grade. These are numerical grades, based on the GCSE scale from 9 to 1 (where 9 is the highest level of attainment). However, these are only used to indicate each girl’s current level of attainment on the material studied that term. These grades are not the same as target or projected grades which will come later (and therefore may be higher), once girls have completed more of the course. Therefore, at this point, most girls will typically achieve a grade within the range of a 4 to a 7.

During the Spring Term each girl in Year 10 will be given a Target Grade and a Projected Grade by their subject teachers (based on the GCSE number grades (9-1), where 9 is the highest level of attainment). These grades will then be revised termly.

We expect girls at Mayfield to achieve ‘good’ passes in their GCSE examinations and therefore girls in Year 10 and 11 should be expecting grades between 5 and 9. Each girl is encouraged to aspire to achieving their Target Grades through regular classroom assessment and feedback from her teachers. In cases where girls are identified as not yet meeting their potential, intervention by the relevant members of staff will occur. Girls are expected to positively participate and engage in this process. If you have any concerns about your daughter’s progress over the course of the year, please do not hesitate to contact her tutor.

In October of Year 12 parents will receive a Teacher Initial Estimate (TIE) card. These are early, initial indications from subject teachers of possible grade outcomes at the end of the A Level course (or equivalent). These are based on teachers’ experience of what similar students have gone on to achieve in the past. These are not current attainment/target/projected grades, or firm predictions, and instead are estimations intended to provide a rough guide to parents and girls as to the possible grades they are working towards, and to help inform decisions about subject choices.

At the end of the Autumn Term each girl in Year 12 will then be given a Target Grade and a Projected Grade by their subject teachers. Both grades are based on the A Level grades, where A* is the highest level of achievement (or equivalent). These grades will be discussed with the girls, so that progress can be the joint responsibility of the teacher and the pupil, and with parents at the Parent’s Consultation Evening. Each girl is encouraged to aspire to achieving these grades through regular classroom assessment and feedback from her teachers. These grades will then be revised regularly throughout the Sixth Form.

In cases where girls are identified as not yet meeting their potential, intervention by the relevant members of staff will occur. Girls are expected to positively participate and engage in this process. If you have any concerns about your daughter’s progress over the course of the year, please do not hesitate to contact her tutor.

Following the Year 12 internal examinations in June, teachers will issue updated Target and Projected grades and you will also receive a separate UCAS predicted grade. This is the grade that will be used for university applications and should be used to inform university research and shortlisting over the summer break.