Feedback and Marking
Research indicates that effective assessment and feedback can help students make six months’ additional progress.
This page is an overview of our approach to feedback and assessment. Full details are in our Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy, which you can download from our Teaching and Learning page.
How we assess at HLAW?
Assessment at HLAW happens on three main levels:
- Ongoing, formative assessment in class through AfL (Assessment for Learning) and live marking.
- Informal, in-class, ungraded ‘gem’ tasks or topic tests – independent tasks in which students apply their knowledge and skills.
- Formal, graded ‘Assessment Points’ twice a year which generally test a sample of all the content learnt in the half-year prior.
Feedback and workload
While feedback is important, we are mindful that marking can quickly escalate a teacher’s workload. We encourage teachers to give whole-class feedback, which has been promoted by the Chartered College of Teaching as an effective way to encourage students to be responsible for their learning.
Teachers keep a record of whole class feedback given in purple feedback folders, to refer to in teaching going forward. For homework we support the use of online platforms which provide immediate feedback to students.
After any feedback is given, students complete DIRT (Directed Improvement and Reflection Time) tasks to improve their work – in green pen. DIRT tasks may be simple corrections (for short ongoing tasks), a new question which tests the same skill, or a re-draft of a section of writing.
Grading
Formal assessments are graded as follows:
- Year 7-10: ‘Academy most likely grades 1-9'. The full range of grades is awarded at each assessment, so a student in Year 7 achieving a grade 8 or 9 is working at the top of their age range. These do not relate directly to GCSE grades, but rather are used as a consistent language for grading assessments across Year 7-11.
- End of Year 10 and Year 11: ‘Working at GCSE grades 1-9'. From the end of Year 10 onwards, students are graded based their most recent assessment in terms of actual GCSE grades. This will always be approximate, as at most assessment points, students will not sit the full suite of papers at one time.
- BTECs (level 1, 2 and 3): 'Pass, Merit, Distinction, Distinction*'. In ‘extended diploma’ courses, BTECs are awarded a triple grade (eg. DMM). When reporting grades throughout a BTEC course, teachers take into account the quality of recent coursework and exam work as an indicator for the whole course.
- A levels: ‘Most recent assessment grades A*-E'. A-levels are generally marked based on A level mark schemes and grade boundaries from the beginning of Year 12.
